Le Figaro reports that this morning the French foreign minister announced on a French news station that the government will announce sometimes the end of the week that vaxxed travelers coming to France will no longer require a negative test.
No details yet on when this would come into effect (and the French definition of being "fully vaccinated" continues to be tougher and tougher to tease out).
Great news. I believe that there is an effort underway to eliminate the entry Antigen requirement of the USA as well.
Generally, I have found that the French definition of fully vaccinated is when one receives a series of shots, typically 3, the last of which, the booster, must be from a messenger RNA vaccine.
That's promising! Thanks for sharing. Going in May and having anxiety about where, when and how to test both here in Canada and there to come back.
Ouf! They usually start the hints a few days ahead.
With cases down 36% last week from the previous, we’re on the road back to the new normal from crisis mode. Greece and Portugal changed their requirements last week, per the Points Guy.
OUF=WHEW
Greece only dropped the testing requirement for the Schengen countries and 33 others that opted into the digital vaccination certificate. The USA did not sign on to the digital certificate, so we still need to have tests to enter the country.
Hopefully this gets done before my mid-March departure for France. It would also be great if the U.S government would end their testing requirement for entry, but I'm not as confident about that.
Encouraging news...thanks for sharing. We're coming in May - on a RS Paris tour. Coming in from Prague.
Excellent, excellent news! Thanks, Kim!
I would not mind doing the test it's just that we don't have the "system" down like the French do with every pharmacy being able to test routinely so getting a travel test done in a timely manner where I live is a PIA!
Bets....is "ouf" good or bad, lol??
Gets better as time goes on ! I'm glad I booked my Autumn trip back in November . Pam , the digital code is getting closer , we have it in New York - The Excelsior Pass Plus . Perhaps a forerunner of things to come .https://covid19vaccine.health.ny.gov/excelsior-pass-and-excelsior-pass-plus
Aimee , true ,true , but seems to be predictive of the way things are evolving
Slowly but surely! I have a trip planned to France in June.
And I'm right there with the ... why do I have to have a negative test to reenter the US but can go to Georgia or Florida and fly back to Oregon NO PROBLEM.
Oh Steven.....I wish that were true! Living in Idaho I can almost guarantee you we will NEVER have one...but then according to most here we haven't had a pandemic either.
why do I have to have a negative test to reenter the US but can go to Georgia or Florida and fly back to Oregon NO PROBLEM.
To be honest, I feel much safer, and I much prefer, the flights I am on when I have had to take a test (and prove vaccination) to have permission to board.
I am still in shock that I didn’t come down with Omicron from any of my four domestic flights in the last two weeks of December.
Hope this is true. Finding the timely test here is a drag. The cost for antigen tests for travel are running into hundreds for us if we have to do them. Those that are less costly don't have quick turnaround.
Pam , things do seem to be progressing . With the availability of the French pass, and the ease in obtaining it , things are getting less complicated . Switzerland has dropped its multi test requirement for vaccinated visitors , and from what I have been reading ,the pass from one EU member country , will be accepted in other countries ( like Germany and Austria . ) If I have this wrong , hopefully someone will step in with a correction .
Steven, I think you are right about the passes being accepted country to country. I've got the Pass Sanitaire from last Fall's trip to France (no testing needed to arrive in France, French testing was easy) and will renew it this spring with my booster info. I think it will work in Belgium as well.
Steven you’re absolutely right about the mutual acceptance of EU passes. In fact, each country participating in the scheme (including some non-EU members like Norway, and, I’m sure, Switzerland) provides you with a national code and a literal “European” code.
The Europeans worked very hard for many months before launching the program to ensure they would create QR codes that were mutually readable, and they did a few testing rounds before settling on the final product.
In France, for example, we got one code when we first got fully vaccinated — then a few weeks later they did whatever they needed to comply with the mutually agreed standards, they issued us new codes that met that European standard.
So what I am seeing is that if I get the vaccine pass in France in April then it would work as a green pass in Italy in June?
Exactly.
Great news, and a policy I’m hoping Germany adopts before we fly into Frankfurt later next month. At least I won’t have to worry about entry requirements when we take the train from Germany to France.
Heading to Hawaii (Oahu) next week & still need to take a test within 72hrs of departure. Hopefully by late Spring testing will be a thing of the past.
Hawaii only requires testing for non-vax folks which I think is weird
just to say, I would think a CDC card will still be acceptable anywhere that also accepts US tourists, because it is our gold standard (and basically all we got). In Paris it easily converted into a pass sanitaire, but I bet I could have used it as-is for my week there since I was clearly not a local.
At least I won’t have to worry about entry requirements when we take the train from Germany to France.
You wouldn't have to worry about them now, either — France hasn’t been requiring negative tests for people coming from within the EU.
Thanks Kim.
And now they have officially announced it - no tests required for vaccinated travelers coming to France as of TOMORROW/February 12.
https://www.interieur.gouv.fr/covid-19-deplacements-internationaux
Ainsi, à compter du 12 février 2022, les règles suivantes s’appliqueront aux frontières :
Pour les voyageurs vaccinés au sens de la réglementation européenne, plus aucun test ne sera exigé au départ. La preuve d’un schéma vaccinal complet redevient suffisante pour arriver en France, quel que soit le pays de provenance, comme c’était le cas avant la diffusion du variant Omicron.
Pour les voyageurs non vaccinés, l’obligation de présenter un test négatif pour se rendre en France demeure, mais les mesures à l’arrivée (test, isolement) sont levées lorsqu’ils viennent de pays de la liste « verte », caractérisée par une circulation modérée du virus.
