New York begins lifting its domestic travel restrictions, but only for vaccinated travelers.
New York removes quarantine for vaccinated travelers
The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, has announced this Domestic travelers arriving in New York no longer need to be quarantined or tested within 90 days of full vaccination.
Those who have not been vaccinated, have been fully vaccinated more than 90 days ago, and those traveling from abroad must continue to follow New York’s standard guidelines for testing and quarantine:
- Travelers must be quarantined for 10 days or travelers must be quarantined for four days, then tested and released upon receiving a negative result
- Travel from Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania is not subject to this rule
- While this quarantine requirement was on paper, in reality it was not properly enforced, contrary to Hawaii’s testing and quarantine policy, which is closely monitored
The 90 day restriction on vaccination is interesting as it shows that we really don’t know how long the vaccine will give you immunity for. It is also interesting to note that the new directive does not specifically state when you are considered “fully” vaccinated.
Hopefully vaccinated travelers will get more bans
We are facing very widespread vaccinations here in the US. President Biden promises that there will be enough vaccines for all American adults by the end of May.
Not only are vaccinated people well protected, from what we know so far, vaccinated people also seem much less likely to spread the coronavirus, which is good news. In the coming months it will be interesting to see how the guidelines are adjusted to reflect vaccination status:
- You’d think vaccinated travelers are allowed to travel fairly freely as they can help the travel business with minimal risk
- At the same time, there are logistical challenges to overcome – how do you prove that you are vaccinated and how long do we assume the vaccination will protect you?
I’m not surprised to see New York waive the requirements for vaccinated travelers as the state hasn’t enforced its quarantine much so far. In states like Hawaii, however, I wouldn’t expect this to happen right away, simply because we still don’t have a good system for proving vaccination status. Just present the little piece of paper you received when you were vaccinated (which can probably be forged pretty easily), right …?
Bottom line
Those who have been fully vaccinated in the past 90 days will no longer need to be quarantined or tested upon arrival in New York. This makes perfect sense, and it’s likely that we’ll see a lot more of this in the near future.
To what extent do you think the destinations will waive quarantine and testing requirements for vaccinated travelers?
