What happens if you test positive when returning to US?

I doubt the airlines will just change your ticket to another date unless you have a ticket that allows changes. Pretty sure there will be additional fares, or change fee only if you are lucky.
Having to quarantine at an expensive hotel is not for me! In your original post, that you deleted, you said you were fully vaccinated. That still won’t let you on a plane if you must have a negative test to return to the US.
The risk is up to each individual. I prefer to wait another year to see if things settle after more of the world is vaccinated.
We have two tours booked with RS for fall of 2022.
I hope for a healthy year in 2022 with hopefully fewer hoops to hurdle.

You have your answer right here: "The US currently requires a negative covid test 3 days prior to returning."

No Negative Test aka Positive and you don't fly.

Will the airline "work with you" if you fell and broke your leg and missed your original planned return flight...yes and they will do so here...they will work with you on cancelling your flight and rebooking with you paying all the fees and ticket price changes etc....Been there- done that in the past with another medical issue and it cost me $1000 to change by 4 days...

And yes, you get to pay for a quarantine hotel....

Yes, travel in 2021 is a risk. Many are taking the risk and will have NO issues but there will be some..... and they will pay and pay (and have no one to blame but themselves (if they want to blame anyone)). Right now traveling is a risk and you have to be accepting of that financial risk. You just have to be prepared to roll with it.

Diane,
I accidentally posted in wrong forum, then tried to delete and and create in the correct forum. Long story short, my original post differed slightly so the system wouldn't think I was creating a duplicate post. Yes, we are vaccinated.

I tend to share your sentiment. Seems like a big risk. I'm surprised there are not more articles on this subject. I have several friends flying international in coming months - I don't think they are aware of all this.

Even with a vaccination, there are break through cases, say 5%(?). If unlucky and one gets a positive test, one may have to stay in the country for 2 or 3 weeks until a negative result. For my family of 3, that could be a $5k+ bill. Not to mention what our employers will say about it. Plus my kid missing school.

The risk seems so high, yet so many seem to be travelling. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Most who travel this year won’t have any problem. For me, I don’t want to jump through the hoops or having to deal with any “what ifs”.

Even with a vaccination, there are break through cases, say 5%(?)

The literature I have seen indicates the rate is 0.01%

The probability of a vaccinated person producing a positive is extremely small, but not zero.

I suspect most people with a 99+% chance of success, find it acceptable odds, and engage in the activity

And to follow up on Joe's reply-- IF, and I mean a very rare IF, you were to test positive and have been fully vaccinated you would get tested again in very short order to avoid false positive issues. But there is risk, but it is very very small. Sadly, right now the people who are charging off to Europe are in some cases the people who can least afford an "oops"...and that is a bit troublesome (but the odds of an oops are very small).

In most situations in Europe, another test is taken after a few days, not weeks. If you are negative, then you are good to go. Yes, you would have to extend the time spent away. If you test positive again, then you would have to wait until you were clear - probably 10 days.

Can you get travel insurance to cover your flight including Covid?

Indications in the U.K. are that the vaccines are 90-95% effective against the Delta variant which is currently running amok in Europe.

The situation changes rapidly and what can be done this week and where people can go maybe different next week. Most are likely to be ok, but some people may get caught out. Friends of mine were stuck on one of the Canary Islands for an extra month last year as there was a snap full lockdown and their flights were cancelled.

My brother is fully vaccinated yet last week he tested positive for Covid (the second time he's had it). His symptoms weren't as severe as the previous infection however it's proof that vaccination doesn't prevent infection.

Airlines are unlikely to be accomrmodating for those who test positive, you'll most likely have to absorb all the costs of cancellation and rebooking. A few years ago British Airways rescheduled mine and my family's flights from San Francisco back to London after I underwent emergency surgery for appendicitis without any additional cost however they were first class flights and I doubt they would have been so helpful if we'd been flying economy.

I traveled to Spain a few weeks ago and fortunately my test to return to the UK was negative however I was prepared to accept the costs of rearranging flights and additional accommodation. I don't think I would be prepared to do that with an expensive long haul flight.

You need to look at the carrier’s conditions. The only thing that matters is the ticket conditions for the ticket that you buy — as to whether you will need to pay for changes.

If you test positive, the airline definitely won’t let you board because the United States won’t let Covid-positive individual enter.

If your test yielded a false positive result, could you not repeat the test? For example, if you got tested 3 days before leaving and tested positive, surely you could then test again within those 3 days?

I agree that a repeat test is a good idea. It's very difficult to discuss the error rate of any test, for several reasons.

The simplest one is that Covid tests are less accurate when administered to people without Covid symptoms. The second is that (for global health reasons, rather than vacation planning!) error reporting focuses on false negatives rather than on false positives. But the final reason is that the actual false-positive rate depends greatly on the prevalence of the tested condition (i.e. Covid-19 here, but the problem exists for any disease that has a test.) This is called the Base Rate Fallacy, and it's fabulously complex for those who hate mathematics and probability theory. In general, the less prevalent the disease is in the tested population, the more likely it is that a positive test is false.

Note that the last five words in the preceding sentence are a very specific situation. It's not the same as asking, "What is the probability that the test I am about to take will have a positive result?"

However, for the purposes of this newsboard, the good news is that rapid Covid tests are far better at reporting true negative status than they are at reporting true positive status. As hinted above, that's not so good for protecting weddings, rock concerts, and nursing homes, and so on, from infected visitors!

Here's a useful quote from a research paper, which mentions a specific test. Note that the analysis requires assuming a certain prevalence of the disease!:

In people with no symptoms of COVID-19 the number of confirmed cases is expected to be much lower than in people with symptoms. Using summary results for SD Biosensor STANDARD Q in a bigger population of 10,000 people with no symptoms, where 50 (0.5%) of them really had COVID-19:
- 125 people would test positive for COVID-19. Of these, 90 people (72%) would not have COVID-19 (false positive result).
- 9,875 people would test negative for COVID-19. Of these, 15 people (0.2%) would actually have COVID-19 (false negative result).

False positives are a problem to be taken into consideration. A few weeks ago we were preparing to send our kids to summer camp and had to get a 72 hour test prior to admission. Of course our unvaccinated 11 year old came back positive despite being completely isolated for ten days prior. My physician wife insisted it was a false positive and immediately scheduled a retest, which came back negative. Then we had to involve the camp and they said this is a definite problem and they would accept her if one more test also came back negative. Fortunately, it did.

Shortly thereafter, I received a call from our county health department. The contact tracer was not at all surprised about the false positive and indicated that as much as 20% of self administered swab tests ( our kids first one was a self swab at the CVS drive through window) as giving false positives.

This is why for my trip coming up in a few weeks I just bought insurance. The insurance will pay for me to stay until I can fly home. The insurance will pay for me to change my plane ticket. Etc. If you travel with out insurance at this time you’re just being foolish.

Now personally I’m not paranoid over the false positive test result. My theory is if an antigen test ever comes back positive the first thing I will do is ask for a PCR test. They are statistically more accurate. There are also more expensive. Go figure. But I’ve now had about 10 antigen tests and everyone of them has been negative(both self swab and lab tech swabs) . So I’m just not panicking. (Work related testing for those of you getting ready to ask LOL)

I am also lucky that I can work remotely. So my laptop will be making the trip to Europe with me. If I had to spend two weeks in a hotel room ordering room service at least I can work

Wow. Lot of good responses. Lots to consider!

Carol,
What insurance company/policy do you recommend with this coverage?

@Tim, I've been discussing the study results with my sons who are scientists. Part of the problem is that the tests were designed for health care purposes, to save lives. Governments have then turned the tests into part of their public policy. In any case, the antigen test is to rule out COVID. The PCR test is to prove COVID. My takeaway is that a traveler probably does better by getting the PCR test. Also, while it does seem outrageous that there would be 72% false positives in the subgroup, when you consider that the original sample size is 10,000, then the test is seeming to do a reasonably good job.

In response to the OP. For a number of reasons, I booked changeable tickets for my trip this fall. As for the rest of my trip, all my inns can be cancelled. If we test positive when we are about to come home, I can rebook my tickets. So at that point, really our potential loss is the hotel room. We already have insurance that covers health care in Europe and emergency evacuation, so we are well covered and really don't need any additional insurance. Many times people buy additional insurance without checking what they already have and assessing their own risk situation. I'd be curious as to what people are paying for their insurance and if they even compared that cost to any potential loss from a positive test.

I just think people need to access their own health and the amount of risk they are willing to accept. People have different life situations, so I would be careful about categorizing people that choose to travel this year with or without buying even more insurance as foolish. Also, this virus won't be going away any time soon. Especially when there are so many people that won't get the vaccination due to a campaign of misinformation.

I go through insuremytrip.com

They have a feature where you can select insurances that cover Covid, although I have discovered in reading policies the others they may not be giving you are not excluding covid. I also do not ensure the value of the trip I self-insured for that. My hotels can be cancelled. I can get all flight credit I can use in the future etc. so really all I’m looking for is medical and repatriation insurance