WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Nearly all air travelers will have to undergo a negative coronavirus test to enter the United States under the extensive testing requirements announced Tuesday.
Under the rules that take effect on January 26, almost all travelers, including U.S. citizens, must show a negative test within three days of departure or documentation of COVID-19 recovery, under an order signed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield.
All travelers 2 years and older must comply, except for passengers traveling through the United States only. The CDC will also consider waiving test requirements for airlines flying to countries with little or no testing capability, including some locations in the Caribbean.
The order dramatically broadens a requirement set on December 28 for travelers arriving from the UK as a more transmissible variant of the virus being spread there.
In an interview, Marty Cetron, director of CDC’s Global Migration and Quarantine Division, said: “We really need to be on point … We need to take these mutations seriously.”
Canada has introduced similar rules for almost all international arrivals from January 7, just like many other countries.
The CDC confirmed last week that it had circulated a proposal to extend the test requirement after discussing the idea for weeks. Some White House senior officials opposed it, and officials briefed on the matter, saying last week that U.S. public health officials had essentially won approval for the election of President Joe Biden.
At a White House meeting on Monday, Redfield again made an urgent case to adopt the test requirements, people said. He expressed concern that vaccines may not be effective against virus variants.
Airlines for America, an industry trading group, praised the test plan. Airlines also wanted a ban on most non-US visitors who had recently been to Brazil and most of Europe, but the White House decided not to end it.
Cetron said the access restrictions need to be ‘actively reconsidered’.
Cetron confirmed that the CDC had discussed the idea of extending the test requirement to domestic US flights, but stressed that the new order only applies to international flights.
Reporting by David Shepardson; Edited by Chris Reese, Dan Grebler and Cynthia Osterman