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US reopened on 8 November 2021 (& subsequent entry restrictions for non-citizens)

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Old Sep 15, 2021, 1:47 pm
FlyerTalk Forums Expert How-Tos and Guides
Last edit by: NewbieRunner
New thread for discussing 1-day test requirements for travellers arriving in the US by air
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/coronavirus-travel/2060730-us-require-air-travelers-provide-negative-test-within-1-day-departure.html

Entry ban from eight southern African countries starting on November 29, 2021

Most non-U.S. citizens who have been in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique or Malaw within the prior 14 days will not be allowed into the United States.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/11/26/a-proclamation-on-suspension-of-entry-as-immigrants-and-nonimmigrants-of-certain-additional-persons-who-pose-a-risk-of-transmitting-coronavirus-disease-2019/

Entry ban by air to be lifted on November 8, 2021 - All travelers should refer to CDC for travel requirements.

3 day pre-flight testing requirement will continue (US citizens/LPR not vaccinated will have to test no earlier than 1 day prior) Children under 2 years old do not need to test.

Children under 18 are exempt from vaccination requirement
Accepted vaccines will include:
  • AstraZeneca
  • BIBP/Sinopharm
  • Covishield
  • Janssen/J&J
  • Moderna
  • Pfizer-BioNTech
  • Sinovac
Vaccination certificates must come from an official source
There is a face mask mandate when flying to/from the USA, with effectively no exemptions, and including children two and above years old
Airlines need to provide some sort of contact tracing information for potential follow-up cases

Update on U.S. travel policy requiring COVID-19 vaccination
Last Updated: October 25, 2021

As announced by the White House today, the new travel policy requiring foreign nationals traveling to the United States to demonstrate proof of full vaccination against COVID-19 will take effect November 8. The CDC’s website explains that, for purposes of entry into the United States, the accepted vaccines will include FDA approved or authorized and WHO Emergency Use Listing vaccines.

COVID-19 Travel Restrictions and Exceptions - U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Consular Affairs
Last updated: October 25, 2021

The presidential proclamations described on this page will no longer be in effect on November 8, 2021. For additional information, please see Safely Resuming Travel by Vaccine Requirement and Rescission of Travel Restrictions on Brazil, China, India, Iran, Ireland, the Schengen Area, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (travel.state.gov).

To protect the public health, there are four presidential proclamations that suspend entry into the United States of all noncitizens who were physically present in any of 33 countries during the 14-day period preceding their entry or attempted entry into the United States. They are Presidential Proclamation 9984 (China); Presidential Proclamation 9992 (Iran); Presidential Proclamation 10143 (Schengen Area, United Kingdom, Ireland, Brazil, and South Africa); and Presidential Proclamation 10199 (India).

What we know so far is
- Confirmed to start on 8 November
- Children under 18 are exempt from the vaccine restrictions, so the varying international standards on jab ages won't be an issue here.

- Vaccines that are OK will include Pfizer, Moderna, AZ, J&J and the two Chinese vaccines.
- Some exemptions from vaccinations are potentially allowed, notably for US citizens, though my guess is airlines will be expecting to see vaccine certificates

- 3 day pre-flight testing requirement will continue, so this needs to be a documented antigen/Lateral Flow test or PCR.
- 3 days is potentially more than 72 hours, departure on a Friday afternoon means a test on Tuesday morning or thereafter.
- NHS Lateral Flows and PCRs can't be used.
- Children over 2 years old travelling with vaccinated travellers have to be tested on the same basis (3 days).
- 1 day testing for unvaccinated USA legal residents (testing on or the day before departure), including their children.

- All passengers need to sign an attestment to confirm their negative test result and also a statement to confirm full vaccination status.
- Children who are not vaccinated do not need to get vaccinated but do need to get a "viral test" 3 to 5 days after arrival in the USA
- As a result there is a separate attestion question for unvaccinated children to confirm that the viral test is arranged.

- Vaccination certificates must come from an official source. The NHS COVID Pass app and EU DCC are specifically mentioned as acceptable.
- Vaccination is counted as two weeks from dose2, or 2 weeks after the sole dose in the case of J&J.
- Antibody certification is not a replacement for the need for vaccination, at least for non USA residents.
- 14 clear days need to elapse before travel. So if jabbed on 1 October then 15 October is when you are good to go.
- Booster vaccinations are not a factor here, they don't count towards or against the primary dose process.

- There is a face mask mandate when flying to/from the USA, with effectively no exemptions, and including children two and above years old.
- Airlines need to provide some sort of contact tracing information for potential follow-up cases.
- These restrictions do not apply at the land border.

Note that a lot of interpretation onus falls on airlines. For example there is no language requirement for vaccine certificates as far as the CDC is concerned, however you can imagine Air France may be hesitant in accepting a vaccine certificate issued in the Welsh language, to take one example.

CDC link
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2...el-System.html


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US reopened on 8 November 2021 (& subsequent entry restrictions for non-citizens)

 
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 8:18 am
  #1156  
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I'm still reasonably optimistic that Biden will re-open after the summer holidays. As business resumes, so the need for business travel. I have no doubt he is already under pressure from his big donors to permit their European workers to visit their US offices (Goldmans and JPM are already largely back in the office and need their staff to be able to visit) and this pressure will only increase. And Biden doesn't want to irritate his donors, so he needs a way to portray this as being good for American business whilst still being nasty to pesky foreigners.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 9:51 am
  #1157  
 
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Originally Posted by outgoing
I sympathize as for years I was on H1B and let's just put it nicely with limited rights here (including at the airports!). I think it makes sense to let H/L and some J visas in (potentially other categories too).
I think it makes sense to let in anyone who can show they have been fully vaccinated with any of the vaccines we know to be effective (Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, Astra-Zeneca, Novavax, and maybe Sputnik V). At this point it's vaccination status, not nation of origin, which we should be using to discriminate.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 11:39 am
  #1158  
 
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Originally Posted by artemis
I think it makes sense to let in anyone who can show they have been fully vaccinated with any of the vaccines we know to be effective (Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, Astra-Zeneca, Novavax, and maybe Sputnik V). At this point it's vaccination status, not nation of origin, which we should be using to discriminate.
Ah, in principal, I agree with you.

With rare exceptions, I'm not a proponent of closing borders and/or restricting travel. In my view, we've been overly cautious on the reopening with the rest of the world, especially with those who areas with high vaccine penetration. But (there's that word again), while I may place more importance on revving up the global economic engine (conflict of interest since I benefit from this), I can understand the Admin's momentary pause, given what we're seeing from the variants.

This isn't to suggest I agree with the Admin's overly cautious stance here, but it isn't unreasonable that Pres Biden may want to give a little extra time for some Americans to overcome their vaccine hesitancy. It's mostly their tax dollars that funded these projects, and if the Admin wants a little extra time to convince them to come around, I can understand that.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 12:23 pm
  #1159  
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Cases are climbing in the UK now, three days in a row...
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 12:34 pm
  #1160  
 
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Originally Posted by nk15
Cases are climbing in the UK now, three days in a row...
The climb is slow. If in the next 5/6 days they do not exceed 15/16000 cases then it will have been a small flare-up and nothing more. We”ll see….
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 1:27 pm
  #1161  
 
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Case numbers are also essentially irrelevant when the majority of the population, including the entire vulnerable cohort (65+), is vaccinated (as in the UK). There could be 100,000 cases a day, but if none of them are ending up in hospital then it doesn't matter.The whole idea of lockdowns/restricting our freedoms was to keep hospitals from being over run - "flatten the curve" etc. Hospitalization/ICU usage stats are the only ones that matter now.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 1:50 pm
  #1162  
 
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Originally Posted by jddbz
Case numbers are also essentially irrelevant when the majority of the population, including the entire vulnerable cohort (65+), is vaccinated (as in the UK).
Couldn't agree more. Although I suspect HMG will use the infection numbers as an excuse for not opening since hospitalization numbers are a lagging indicator.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 2:25 pm
  #1163  
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Originally Posted by jddbz
Case numbers are also essentially irrelevant when the majority of the population, including the entire vulnerable cohort (65+), is vaccinated (as in the UK). There could be 100,000 cases a day, but if none of them are ending up in hospital then it doesn't matter.The whole idea of lockdowns/restricting our freedoms was to keep hospitals from being over run - "flatten the curve" etc. Hospitalization/ICU usage stats are the only ones that matter now.
I live in the USA but I watch the UK BBC news at 10 most days. For months and months the BBC have given daily Covid figures including cases, deaths and number in hospital along with vaccination statistics. For the last 2 weeks or so they have stopped giving number of people in hospital and I cannot for the life of me understand why they no longer show this key statistic. It is probably the most important single indicator of what we're facing in the next few months.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 2:30 pm
  #1164  
 
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Originally Posted by golfmad
I live in the USA but I watch the UK BBC news at 10 most days. For months and months the BBC have given daily Covid figures including cases, deaths and number in hospital along with vaccination statistics. For the last 2 weeks or so they have stopped giving number of people in hospital and I cannot for the life of me understand why they no longer show this key statistic. It is probably the most important single indicator of what we're facing in the next few months.
Sad to say but it is because the hospitals numbers are too low….
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 2:41 pm
  #1165  
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Originally Posted by DL77
Sad to say but is because the hospital numbers are too low….
I don't buy that answer but I genuinely can't think of any other reason.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 2:44 pm
  #1166  
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Originally Posted by golfmad
I live in the USA but I watch the UK BBC news at 10 most days. For months and months the BBC have given daily Covid figures including cases, deaths and number in hospital along with vaccination statistics. For the last 2 weeks or so they have stopped giving number of people in hospital and I cannot for the life of me understand why they no longer show this key statistic. It is probably the most important single indicator of what we're facing in the next few months.
but with increased vaccination, even hospital admissions becomes a poor indicator because they are recording people admitted WITH COVID and not BECAUSE of COVID. With increasing infection rates in the general population , the natural number admitted to hospital that test positive will also go up, even if they were admitted for jamming a knife in their hand trying to remove an avocado stone. The same also applies to death rate.

the real world data is increasingly showing the vaccines as effective against the delta variant. There is no reason other than political for borders to remain closed and travel to be so restricted. I suspect however that government will continue to claim that rates are too high even when there are limited actual consequences from this.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 2:54 pm
  #1167  
 
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Originally Posted by Tim_T
I suspect however that government will continue to claim that rates are too high even when there are limited actual consequences from this.
Agreed. But who benefits from this?
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 3:19 pm
  #1168  
 
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Originally Posted by golfmad
I don't buy that answer but I genuinely can't think of any other reason.
It is exactly the answer and the data is here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

As you can see, hospitalisations attributed to COVID are at 200/day, not a worth statistic to scare people when it was 4200/day in Jan/Feb

Total in hospital attributed to COVID is 1250 vs 40K in Jan/Feb.
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 3:23 pm
  #1169  
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Originally Posted by casey89
Agreed. But who benefits from this?
those that have gained the power over the population that now don’t want to give it up.

I also suspect the scientists don’t want to give it up either since they are enjoying the spoils of being on TV news everyday and the buckets of cash to model every new variant
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Old Jun 22, 2021, 3:39 pm
  #1170  
 
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You're not the only one in this situation. Just locate my post higher up in this thread and submit a similar complaint to the European Commission using their official contacts -- nothing will change unless we all act.


Originally Posted by DL77
It’s not just the ban, it’s also the discrimination to non immigrants visaholders and property owners. We work here, our kids go to school here, we pay taxes and the IRS considers us residents. Yet we can’t reenter directly nor renew our visas right now, we are still stuck!!!!
Come on just a little effort, easy to understand! It’s not just about tourism, hell!
They must begin to realize how unfair and frustrating it can be to see Americans, even unvaccinated, who go to eat spaghetti and sunbathe in Italy while EU citizens, even vaccinated, cannot even go back to work or to meet family members. How disgusting!
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