CDC Reposes COVID-19 Traveling Guidelines for Fully Vaccinated People

Apr, 2021 - By WMR

The USCDC stated that “After evaluating the actual effects of vaccination in recent studies, citizens who have been completely vaccinated can now travel at lower risk”.

The national health agency of the U.S., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has recommended that fully vaccinated candidates are allowed to travel within the U.S. at low risk to themselves. CDC further added that vaccinated candidates will not be required to undergo COVID-19 testing or get quarantined after travel but prescribed to take precautionary measures such as social distancing, wearing a mask, sanitizing hands, and avoiding crowds.

CDC has defined a fully vaccinated person as a candidate who is fully vaccinated two weeks after getting the most recent prescribed shot of vaccine. The U.S. federal agency also noted that for travelling abroad, the fully vaccinated candidates will not require a COVID-19 test before travel, except if it is demanded by the destination. However, only about 30% of the U.S. population has been inoculated. The Director of CDC, Rochelle Walensky, has advocated the non-inoculated population to avoid unnecessary travelling.

Following these new guidelines, the volume of people travelling has increased substantially as some of the airports reported a surge in their boarding passengers. The Transportation Security Administration of the U.S. has reported the screening of over one million passengers at several airports since late-march due to the relaxations in COVID-19 restrictions and the upcoming spring break season.

These updated guidelines from the CDC hint that the government is getting more comfortable with the idea of relaxing COVID-19 restrictions. Factors such as increased vaccination rates across the U.S. and the economy returning to normalcy are the possible reasons for these relaxed travel guidelines. It will be interesting to see how the health agencies of other countries interpret to these guidelines with regard of their own regulations.