England dropping testing requirements for vaccinated arrivals

That is disappointing, actually. I would rather know that other people on the plane had tested negative, just like we have.

That is disappointing, actually. I would rather know that other people on the plane had tested negative, just like we have.

Considering the unreliability of lateral flow tests I wouldn't put too much faith in assuming that everyone on board was virus free simply because their tests were negative. On our last flight back to the UK my wife was identified by the NHS Track and Trace team as someone who had been a close contact with a fellow passenger on the flight who had subsequently tested positive when they conducted their day 2 test and as a result she had to quarantine. Of course there's a possibility that they contracted the virus upon their return to the UK but with the number of confirmed reliability issues with the tests it's more likely that their pre-departure test was incorrect.

My wife never tested positive during her quarantine, maybe the test was innacurate and she was asymptomatic or she wasn't infected, we'll never know but I'm quite happy that the testing requirements have been dropped, the reliability of them has been called into question and the ramifications of a false positive can be quite considerate for those impacted.

I would not assume everyone on the plane who tested negative was free of the virus, but it does significantly improve the odds.

I for one am happy. The light at the end of the Covid tunnel is getting brighter. At least you know everyone on the plane has been vaccinated. We don’t know who is and who isn’t going to the local grocery store etc.

So you know everyone on the plane has been vaccinated? how? They’re dropping the testing requirements for vaccinated travelers. Not non-vaccinated travelers.

The new rules dropping quarantine for unvaccinated travelers should if anything encourage a fair amount of unvaccinated, or unboosterized visitors to head on over. England will now be the leading European country allowing fairly easy access for unvaccinated. It will be interesting to see if in the coming weeks and months any of the other bigger countries follow suit with this streamlined approach or not.

The problem is that vaccinated people can still become infected, and then are infectious—-and may not know it. So they can spread it around. Too many people misunderstand the role of vaccination: it protects you from serious illness (in most cases), but it doesn’t mean you cannot get infected and pass it to others.

Unvaccinated tourists still have to take 2 tests so it isn't as if the flood gates are wide open.

Good news and a step in the right direction.

I must say I wish the US would follow suit and allow vaccinated or vaccinated + boosted arrivals to be free of the testing requirement. That is the only area of international travel anxiety for me right now - testing negative to return to the US. At this stage in the pandemic it seems pointless to require it of those who are vaccinated.