Just as the CDC rolled out guidance that rubber-stamps mask-less gatherings for vaccinated individuals, the agency still won’t endorse non-essential travel. This surprised me at first, as I’d thought that travel would get back on track as vaccination rates rise. But this appears to not be the case, even as immunity passports may become a thing. I’m honestly staunchly opposed to them, for various reasons, but that is a different discussion.
The Odd Efficacy of COVID-19 Vaccines
The main issue is that the CDC doesn’t know whether the COVID-19 vaccines will result in a reduction in disease transmission. Unlike the goal of other vaccines to provide temporary or permanent immunity, the COVID-19 vaccines are actually intended to reduce the severity of the symptoms. This is the hang-up for travel. People may still become infected with COVID-19, which could then theoretically still be transmitted by infected individuals, but they are less likely to develop a severe infection themselves. The fact that they are still infected is the issue.
We may be looking at May as when everyone in the country has the ability to get vaccinated against COVID-19, should they so choose. What remains to be seen is how travel will be handled for vaccinated versus nonvaccinated travelers once we are at this point.
Final Thoughts
It’s a waiting game for now. Hopefully, as the data rolls in on the activity of vaccinated individuals, the CDC will be more confident about issuing guidance that they can travel freely without presenting any additional risk.
I’m skeptical that travel will get back to normal due to increasing vaccination rates, although we can wait and see what the data says. I’m honestly expecting mounting political pressure to be more of a driver to open up travel as people look toward another relatively vacation-less summer. No one wants to repeat 2020, and as first quarter 2021 draws to a close, things still aren’t looking super hopeful for international travel.
CDC has proven itself to be a useless government agency. In February 2020 I purchased N95 masks from Lowes before the CDC told everyone not to wear a mask. You know what the CDC was doing in February 2020, putting out Covid tests that did not work. The CDC had no plan to deal with a pandemic. CDC had no plan in place for contact tracing to control the spread. They had no plan to get shots into arms. Even the phases for who should receive a shot first was pure ignorance. Luckily mosts states ignored the CDC guidelines and prioritized the older populations (the people who are most likely to be hospitalized and die) If it was up to the CDC people between the ages of 65 and 75 (CDC had them in Phase 1C) would still be waiting on shots behind, 20-30 year old police officers and other government employees, retail workers, etc.
All last spring the CDC was pushing hand washing for a respiratory disease. I still have not seen one case study where a person got covid19 from a surface. The CDC should have been planning for a pandemic over the last 2 decades but as with most government agencies they react and never plan. September 11th proved that.
I received my fist covid vaccine shot last week and booked my first trip that same day for the end of May. I have not been on a plane in 15 months. I decided early on to ignore the CDC advice and use common sense.
“As with most government agencies they react and never plan.” Very true!