White House officials should be focusing on exempting vaccinated travellers to the US from Covid-19 testing rather than arguing over mask wearing on flights.
The call came from the head of the American Society of Travel Advisors (Asta) in response to Monday’s Florida court decision striking down the federal government’s transportation mask mandate.
Asta president and chief Zane Kerby intervened as the US health authority urged Washington to appeal the mask mandate ruling, which makes it optional for passengers to wear face coverings.
Kerby said: “The current back and forth on the mask mandate pertaining to various forms of transportation misses the mark and overshadows very real policies deterring international travel.
“Requiring Americans to test negative prior to returning home from abroad is the public policy that needs immediate reversal.”
Pointing out that millions of Americans travel by air every day, he added: “Those travelling internationally risk quarantining abroad and navigating multiple foreign countries’ bureaucratic and ever-changing pandemic rules.
“As a result, Americans are delaying or simply cancelling international trips, ensuring once again that travel will be the last industry to recover from the pandemic.”
He described the current policy as creating the false impression that travel outside of the US invariably poses a greater Covid risk than travel within the country.
Kerby said: “How else would the typical traveller understand why a flight from London to New York requires testing while a flight from New York to Los Angeles does not?
“To the contrary, a number of countries have vaccination rates higher than the US. This fact alone makes it evident that the current testing regime is not defensible on any apparent rational or scientific basis.
“A multitude of these forward-thinking foreign governments have already removed their inbound testing requirement, and the US should do the same.
“Exempting the more than 218 million Americans who are fully vaccinated from the order would reflect the scientific consensus that widespread vaccination is the single most essential element of the fight against Covid-19, while allowing the travel industry’s recovery to begin in earnest.”
Kerby accused the US government of holding its own citizens “hostage abroad” with an “overly cautious, unscientific, and contradictory rule”.
He said: “When travelling to countries with high vaccination rates, the risk of being hospitalised from Covid-19 is extremely low.
“To be clear, we support lifting the inbound testing requirement for all travellers, regardless of their vaccination status, and that remains Asta’s ultimate policy objective.
“However, given the bipartisan support in Congress that already exists for it, exempting vaccinated travellers from the requirement represents a logical, and achievable, first step.”
He pointed out that following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, governments across the world took steps to screen airline passengers and, later, to optimise those screening procedures.
“Now is the time to adopt a similar approach, one that strikes a better balance between public health concerns and the right of free people to travel without undue restriction,” Kerby said.
“Asta believes a policy exempting fully vaccinated travellers from the inbound testing requirement is the one that best reflects that approach.“