The U.S. is working with several governments to create ‘air bridges’ where people would be able to travel, at least between specific cities, with both pre-departure Covid testing along with testing on arrival. Talks with the U.K. are farthest along, and could allow travel next month or the month ago. The U.S. and Germany have also been in discussion about allowing reciprocal travel with double negative tests.

Current Travel Restrictions Make No Sense

It’s been strange for the U.S. to continue bans on travel from China, Europe, and Brazil when SARS-CoV-2 is already spreading here. We’re not keeping the virus out. With over 40,000 confirmed cases and an unknown number of untested cases each and every day, keeping out a handful of people who might have Covid-19 doesn’t really alter the course of the pandemic.

Meanwhile the U.S. never placed restrictions on travel from Qatar, Bahrain, Aruba or other countries with more confirmed per capita cases than there are here. Countries with less testing than the U.S., like India, likely have far more total cases than there are here as well.

For while it made at least some coherent sense for the U.K. to require quarantine on arrival for Americans. But that was an admission of failure – even 8 months into the pandemic they didn’t have a testing regime in place that would assure them arriving passengers were unlikely to be bringing the virus, after Britain had already paid a heavy price to the novel coronavirus earlier in the year.

Over the past week, though, the U.K. has been reporting more cases per capita than the U.S. has. It’s not clear what the U.K. is doing trying to keep the virus out. It’s already ‘in’ and spreading again rapidly.

This isn’t to say that travel restrictions don’t make sense anywhere. There are many island nations that have kept out the virus, and where their medical facilities simply couldn’t handle an influx. They’re still in the containment stage of dealing with the virus, not just mitigation. (Just as there are countries that are ‘too poor to lock down’ and the consequences of banning travel may be even greater than Covid-19.)

We’re Just Now Getting Real Progress Towards Allowing Travel With Testing

Despite the lack of public health logic in many of the current travel restrictions, they’re tough to remove. Discussions about a ‘bubble’ between New York (which had largely suppressed virus spread) and London have been ongoing for over six weeks. Since that time New York’s caseload and positivity rate has inched up and the U.K.’s has shot up.

We’re still only talking about opening up flights between New York and London even as circumstances on the ground change, but we’re apparently getting closer to it being a reality… although it looks like any such opening won’t happen until at least late next month.

• The U.S. is working with a variety of countries on allowing reciprocal travel with negative Covid rapid tests.

• This planning involves numerous agencies on the U.S. side, including the Department of Transportation and Homeland Security as well as the National Security Council which “approved the corridor plan to move forward in recent weeks.” Things move slowly on both sides: the U.K. has only committed to “study the potential role of airport testing.”

• The plan is for testing both prior to travel and on arrival.

• The U.S. is open to reciprocal arrangements with a variety of countries. New York – London appears to be first in the queue but there have also been discussions between the U.S. and Germany.

Many countries remain reluctant to allow U.S. residents to enter even after two negative Covid-19 tests. And even American Airlines, whose business depends on travel returning, is quoted by the Wall Street Journal as saying “we want to ease into this.”

Ultimately testing is a stopgap, and we can expect countries to require proof of vaccination in order to enter. Of course that too has its conceptual flaws, for instance if a vaccine is only 50% effective (which the FDA has said is a floor for their approval here).