The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a significant update to travel guidance for people who are fully vaccinated against Covid-19 which eliminates some testing and quarantine recommendations.
Fully vaccinated people can travel at low risk to themselves, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said Friday, but travel still isn’t recommended at this time because of rising numbers of coronavirus cases.The agency said that as long as coronavirus precautions are taken, including mask wearing, fully vaccinated people can travel within the United States without getting tested for Covid-19 before or self-quarantining after.For international travel, fully vaccinated people don’t need a Covid-19 test prior to travel — unless it is required by the destination — and do not need to self-quarantine after returning to the United States. They should still have a negative Covid-19 test before boarding a flight to the US, and a follow up test three to five days after their return, the CDC noted.
However, the agency isn’t rushing to ‘let’ us have too much freedom. It seems travel is still not recommended even for those vaccinated:
…Walensky maintained that “CDC is not recommending travel at this time due to the rising number of cases” in the U.S.”I want to acknowledge today that providing guidance in the midst of a changing pandemic, and its changing science, is complex. On the one hand, we are telling you we are worried about rising cases, to wear a mask, and to avoid travel. Yet on the other hand, we are saying that, if you are vaccinated, evolving data suggests that traveling is likely lower risk,” she said.
CNN host Chris Cuomo interviewed George Washington University Public Health Policy Professor Laura Wen. The interview was most illuminating, and it looks like she hopes the current administration will maximize connections between vaccination status to the resumption of life in a post-pandemic world.
It’s clear to them that the vaccine is the ticket to pre-pandemic life….and the window to do that is really narrowing. You were mentioning, Chris, about how all these states were reopening. They are reopening at 100 percent….and we have a very narrow window to tie reopening policy to vaccination status.Because, otherwise, if everything is reopen, then what’s the carrot going to be? How are we going to incentivize people to actually get the vaccine? So that’s why I think the CDC and the Biden administration needs to come out a lot bolder and say, “If you’re vaccinated, you can do all these things…here’s all these freedoms that you have.” Because, otherwise, people are going to go out and enjoy those freedoms anyway.” [emphasis added]
I don’t think tying personal freedoms to vaccination mandates is the winning message they think it is.
If there are struggles with vaccination goals not being achieved, then the current administration has only itself to blame. It spent the entire campaign season smearing the efforts of President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, especially in regards to the safety and efficacy of the vaccines being produced and approved for wide-spread use.
Wen had previously been a guest on CNN, during an episode featuring how evil Trump was smearing Asians because he referred to the virus as the “China Virus.” It seems she ‘heard’ that she was called a “bat eater,” told to go back home to her own country, and that she should admit that ‘her people’ were responsible for the virus. None of which President Trump actually said or implied.
Perhaps, if instead of focusing on race and political party, our experts had stuck with medicine and epidemiology, Americans would have respected and followed their advice. But they didn’t, and many Americans don’t.
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