Testing Positive In Rome?

Anytime that a negative test is required for travel, there is a certain amount of risk involved that a person may test positive and need to change travel plans. Each individual has to determine the level of risk that he/she are willing to accept. With Omicron, many asymptomatic individuals have no idea that they have Covid until they participate in that pre-departure testing.

I always try to plan for what would happen if "worst case scenario" happens while traveling. If I think that I could accept that, I'll travel. If it doesn't seem like a risk I want to take I won't. I know my sister and I cancelled a trip we had scheduled for March because she felt that the option of quarantine for an additional period of days simply wasn't going to be possible with her work schedule. Just the idea of the possibility of this was enough to stress her out and take away a great deal of any possible enjoyment.

You truly won't know until you do that pre-departure test for return whether it is negative or positive. Can you accept either result?

Travel has gotten super-stressful, but what can we do? The only other option is to not travel at all, and that is no way to live.

Thank you to all of you for your thoughts on the subject. It is hard to know what to do for sure. ultimately, I guess there are no guarantees on any of this and one may just have to make a leap of faith and hope for the best (while taking as much precautions as we can).

You are not going to get infected because you will be extra careful. So don't worry!

Rome2022, best thing to do is to think things through, talk with your travel partner, and have contingency plans for what you would do in various scenarios. For example, if one of you tests positive, does the other go home? Or if one of you is ill, can the other make treatment decisions? Who to notify at home, etc.

This is a very real concern for all of us who want to travel. The potential for testing positive is very real, and the consequence of that is being stuck in a foreign country. It’s worth thinking about the “what-ifs”.

In August, we travelled to Costa Rica with two teens. We had a plan in place: if one of the kids tested positive, my husband would stay with him and I and the other kid would return home. We had trip insurance that would have paid $2,000 for our quarantine expenses, in addition to medical expenses. And we had emergency evacuation coverage. ALL of our activities and meals were outdoors. We didn’t take any public transportation once we got off the plane. Our last destination was an apartment where we had laundry, a full kitchen, great WiFi and a balcony with an ocean view. It would not have been a terrible place to be stuck! We generally don’t bring a laptop on vacation, but we did this time in case we needed it for work. Alas, we all tested negative and returned home. But that day we tested was a bit nerve wracking waiting for results.

I think you need to consider where you will be when you take your test and potentially have a positive result. Will it be someplace you can stay for another x number of days comfortably? Do you have easy access to food (either room service or delivery)? Can your travel companion get to the airport easily without you? Are you ok with being by yourself in a single room in a foreign country for x days?

Please plan ahead for the worst scenario. Make sure you have contingency plan if one of you get tested positive. As folks mentioned, its hard predict with Omicron. In my case, we are family of 4. We had an excellent trip and one of us tested positive on the test we had to take to fly back to USA. Completely asymptomatic so no clue and we were shocked with the result. We quickly purchased homekit and rested - same result. At the end, you can not travel back unless you get a negative result - if vaccinated typically that will last up to 7 days. Good luck!

Several people have tried to test negative early at five or seven days and received positive tests, even with Omicron, so they have had to get a recovery letter to be able to fly back on day 11 or later. Omicron, just like other variants, remains in the nose beyond the contagious period or any symptoms. Some counties do require you retest and your viral load to be below a certain level (Austria, Germany) , while others go by isolation time and absence of symptoms (USA, France).

I had a Delta breakthrough case in December, flew to the US with a recovery letter and have never retested.

Aimee, you make a good point about having coverage to include testing positive before departure. Do you mind sharing which insurance company you used?

Just an update. My daughter tested negative after 3 days. (Rapid antigen test). We bought HomeKit and tested every day and saw the line was fading by the day. Went for an official rapid test and she was negative. Quickly moved the tickets and back to home. We quarantined in an Airbnb. Btw, I was taking the HomeKit test daily to make sure I don’t test positive.

Aimee, just a note - you have probably doubled checked this already (or it is no longer applicable) but I bought World Nomads for an Oct. trip to Croatia. 3 days before I left they emailed, reminding me it was not valid for a Level 4 country. I had not read that anywhere and I try to be careful. It made me extra careful for future insurance purchases because Croatia could have been moved to level 4 between when I bought the policy and when I left, but fortunately wasn’t.

Can you buy insurance for covid related unexpected hotel costs, etc. anytime? What is a good company?

"Can you buy insurance for covid related unexpected hotel costs, etc. anytime? What is a good company?"

You can but you have to run the numbers to see if it is worth it. I looked at Travel Guard coverage for my trip to France in Sept/Oct. They only covered $500 on hotels for quarantine/isolation. That didn't seem worth it to me as that would just be a few hotel nights so I just made sure I had my credit cards paid off and had plenty of "room" on them if I had to add 10 nights + to my stay. At that time isolation if you were positive in France was 10 days, now it is 7.

Food...well, I would not really consider that expense anyway...you have to eat when you are home and in isolation you are not going to be doing any fancy dinners.

You probably need to determine the status of Italian isolation/quarantine. Is the government paying for isolation hotels (such as the one that couple is staying at in the Seattle Times story that was listed a few days ago??) or is it like France where it is out of pocket and you find your own lodging.

Aimee/Travelmom - I just took a look at World Nomads website. They have a banner under their FAQ that states.....

Coronavirus (COVID-19) and travel - Need to know before you buy

Some but not all of our policies provide cover for some coronavirus-related events – select your Country of Residence to find out more. Cover is not available for loss arising from: government intervention including travel bans, border closures or broadly imposed quarantine requirements; events for which the Government (see your policy) has issued a ‘Do Not Travel’ warning or its equivalent, for your destination(s); or failure to follow advice from official bodies. Your ability to travel may be affected by travel restrictions. Check your cover and the latest government advice and our travel insurance alerts.

So in that "World Nomads Banner" one of the exclusions for coverage is "events for which the Government (see your policy) has issued a ‘Do Not Travel’ warning or its equivalent, for your destination(s)". Well, Italy has been on Level 4 Do Not Travel list since around mid-December.

Okay, adding to my prior post regarding World Nomads, when I set the home residence to US (I might not have done that initially), the banner no longer appears. So, I'm really not sure if they cover Level 4 or not....

For this year, I bought an annual policy (I hope to travel a lot) from Allianz that covers costs related to trip cancellation (including Covid-related), some (maybe not all) on trip interruption (including Covid-related), and medical. Just thought I would throw out my World Nomads experience from Sept. to double check on. I would have to go back and dig around to figure out what specific policy I bought.

Thanks Aimee for following up :)