New rules for anyone flying to the United States begin in a few hours.
The U.S. says that passengers on any flights that depart for the U.S. after Monday, December 6 at 12:01 a.m. Eastern Time (which could be interpreted as 9:01 p.m. December 5, today, for flights departing in the Pacific time zone) must show a negative COVID-19 test taken either the day of their flight or the day before.
That goes for doubly vaccinated travellers, as well.
Contrary to some published reports, it’s not a 24-hour window. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention site says anyone flying internationally “will need to get a COVID-19 viral test (regardless of vaccination status or citizenship) no more than 1 day before you travel by air into the United States. You must show your negative result to the airline before you board your flight.
“The 1-day period is 1 day before the flight’s departure,” the CDC explains. “The Order uses a 1-day time frame instead of 24 hours to provide more flexibility to the air passenger and aircraft operator. By using a 1-day window, test acceptability does not depend on the time of the flight or the time of day that the test sample was taken.
“For example, if your flight is at 1 pm on a Friday, you could board with a negative test that was taken any time on the prior Thursday,” the CDC states.
The previous US rules allowed travellers to get tested three days prior to a flight, versus the new standard of one day.
Unlike Canada, which requires incoming passengers to take a (usually expensive) PCR test, the U.S. allows some kinds of rapid antigen tests. They’re commonly available in Canada for around $30 or $40.
According to USA Today, travellers must take a viral test, which includes antigen tests and nucleic acid amplification tests such as:
- reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests
- reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) tests
- transcription-mediated amplification (TMA) tests
- nicking enzyme amplification reaction (NEAR) tests
- helicase-dependent amplification (HDA) tests.
Other countries also have tightened their travel rules. Global News reports that “Britain’s government tightened travel restrictions Saturday amid concerns about the spread of the omicron coronavirus variant, saying all travelers arriving in England will need to take a COVID-19 test before they board their flight.”
The British Health Minister said the new rules will go into effect at 4 a.m. London time Tuesday.
The Justin Trudeau government in Ottawa last Tuesday said it will start requiring anyone who flies into the country from a destination other than the United States to not only provide a negative COVID test taken with 72 hours of their scheduled departure, but also will be subject to on-arrival testing at the airport, or at their final destination. Those test results could take up to three days or more, and travellers will have to isolate until those results come back, officials said.
The rollout of those airport tests have been spotty, and government officials admit that even they don’t know which airports have the tests ready to go.
Martin Firestone, president of Travel Secure Inc., told CTV News Channel that the confusion at airports over the new PCR test requirement is likely to grow.
“I’m seeing right now there’s many people that are making a decision to cancel their flights or cancel their trips,” he said.
Firestone said folks looking for international trips might want to consider putting them off until later next year, versus January or February.
