The US government on Friday decided to do away with the mandate that required international air passengers travelling to the States to take a Covid test a day before boarding the flight. This was one of the last remaining government mandates to control the Covid situation in the country. The mandate will expire at 12 am on Sunday, said a senior administration official.
The official added that the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention determined that the Covid test for international travellers was no longer necessary. He further added that the agency would reevaluate the need for the testing requirement every 90 days and that it could be reinstated if a troubling new variant emerges.
The Biden administration put in place the testing requirement last year, as it moved away from restrictions that banned nonessential travel from several dozen countries — most of Europe, China, Brazil, South Africa, India and Iran — and instead focuses on classifying individuals by the risk they pose to others.
It came in conjunction with a requirement that foreign, non-immigrant adults travelling to the United States need to be fully vaccinated, with only limited exceptions. The initial mandate allowed those who were fully vaccinated to show proof of a negative test within three days of travel, while unvaccinated people had to present a test taken within one day of travel.
In November, as the highly transmissible omicron variant swept the world, the Biden administration toughened the requirement and required all travellers, regardless of vaccination status, to test within a day of travel to the US. Airline and tourism groups have been pressing the administration for months, pushing to eliminate the testing requirement, saying it is discouraging people from booking international trips.
Many other countries have lifted their testing requirements for fully vaccinated and boosted travellers a bit to increase tourism. In February, the groups argued the testing requirement was obsolete because of the high number of omicron cases already in every state, higher vaccination rates and new treatments for the virus.
(With inputs from AP)
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