US bans Brits without negative Covid test
Passengers flying from the UK to the US must have a negative Covid-19 test before boarding their flight.
The test – which can be a PCR or a faster antigen test – must have been taken no more than 72 hours before they depart for the States.
The new restriction, which came into effect yesterday, follows a U-turn by the Trump administration, which told airlines last week that it was not planning any testing for UK passengers.
However, some airlines had already introduced mandatory Covid tests for passengers on flights to New York.
Following the US government’s announcement that all UK travellers to the States must present a negative Covid test, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said: "This additional testing requirement will fortify our protection of the American public to improve their health and safety and ensure responsible international travel."
It follows the discovery in the UK of a new strain of coronavirus, which is thought to be about 70% more infectious and has led to more than 40 countries shutting their borders to travellers from the UK or introducing tighter travel restrictions.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said British Airways, Delta Air Lines and Virgin Atlantic last week agreed to mandate negative tests for all passengers to the city, and United Airlines did the same for its flights to Newark.
From this week, airlines are ordered to deny boarding to all passengers without proof of a negative Covid test.
US airlines have already drastically scaled back flying to the UK, with passenger numbers down around 90% on March.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he expected the new coronavirus variant to spread in the US if it was not doing so already.
Trevor Bedford, a genomic epidemiologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, told the Wall Street Journal that the US had been working more slowly at sequencing viral genomes than the UK.
Samples tested so far had not picked it up, Bedford said, adding that ‘it could well be here at low frequency and just not detected yet’.
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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