The United States is now vaccinating an average of 2.5 million people per day — many of whom have been cooped up at home for the better part of a year and are dreaming of the vacations they didn’t get to take in 2020.
This begs the question: what do we need to know about travel after the vaccine, and as we hopefully move into a post-pandemic phase?
Where we were one year ago: COVID restrictions
At the beginning of 2020, news of the novel coronavirus was mere background noise for many of us. But by March, the words “COVID-19” and “pandemic” became a huge part of our vocabulary, as many states shut down their economies and issued travel restrictions in an effort to curb the spread of a disease we barely understood.
It’s almost comical to remember our misassumptions about the severity of the pandemic: that when we first started locking down, we thought the emergency would be over in just a couple of weeks. Or that wiping down all our groceries was a good use of time. Or that our kids would all be back in school in just a matter of weeks.
And one of the first casualties of the lockdowns and quarantines was the family vacation. Just as the United States and other countries closed off their borders to try to slow the pandemic’s spread, travel restrictions were also imposed by the states. Air travel plummeted last summer by 70%. Hotel revenue for the year fell by 48%.
The one bright area of vacation travel last year was the family road trip: As the weather warmed up and many of the initial restrictions were relaxed, 47% of Americans surveyed by the travel industry indicated that they would pack up their vehicles and take a vacation close to home. One-third of those respondents indicated they would stay at a private rental (i.e., AirBnB), which was a 17% increase over the previous year. Fifteen percent said they would go camping. The rest planned to use traditional lodging, thanks to new hotel safety protocols to protect their guests and staffers.
Where we are now: CDC quarantine guidelines after vaccine
The COVID picture in the United States right now shows a lot of promise. As of this writing, over 25% of Americans have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, and over 45 million Americans have been fully vaccinated.
The CDC recently released guidelines for fully vaccinated patients. These include suggestions for socializing indoors with other vaccinated people and those who have not been vaccinated and instructions on if they need to quarantine if exposed to COVID after the vaccine.
What they did not include was information about safely traveling again.
“Now is not the time to travel,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said at a recent press briefing.
“We’re worried not just for what happens when you are on the airplane itself, but what happens when people travel. That is, they go out; they mix — they mix with people who are not vaccinated.”
Dr. Walensky pointed out many countries are undergoing yet another lockdown due to another wave of virus that has been fed by easing travel restrictions there.
“We just don’t want to be at this rapid uptick of cases again, and that is very possible that that could happen. We’ve seen that. We’re behind the eight ball when that starts to happen. And that results in uptick of cases, hospitalizations, and then death,” she said.
Going forward: Some travel restrictions remain
Not all public health experts are as cautious as Dr. Walensky, especially for those who have been fully vaccinated.
“The travel itself is very low risk,” Dr. Leana Wen told the Wall Street Journal. “If they follow precautions like wearing a mask, the risk of them contracting the coronavirus and passing it on to the rest of the family is extremely low and the benefit is huge. People are eager to see their families.”
Tara Kirk Sell, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, concurs. “Right at this at this very minute, the CDC is still saying that travel isn’t recommended because cases are high,” she told the Washington Post. “But I expect this summer, as cases come down and vaccinations go up, I think it’s probably safe to fly.”
This is good news for people like West Virginia mom Melissa Smallwood, who is fully vaccinated and planning to fly this fall to Colorado to meet an aunt she recently discovered on Ancestry DNA.
“I will still wear a mask and follow guidelines and we will be staying in other than hiking/outdoor activities that are in my comfort zone. I do feel safer knowing I’m vaccinated,” Melissa told Mom.com.
But California mother of two Emmie Johnson is not ready to pack up and go somewhere. “I’m reticent,” she admitted to Mom.com. “Three of the four of us will be vaccinated by summer. The one who is unvaxxed won’t be age eligible yet.”
And the experts agree that until kids can be vaccinated, families will need to make some hard decisions with any travel plans. Last year’s family road trips and self-contained camping trips are still relatively safe. And wherever anyone goes — vaccinated or not — hygiene, social distancing, and masking are still advised.
“I have always said you’ll never regret being too cautious during this pandemic,” Cleveland Clinic medicine specialist Joseph Khabbaza told the Washington Post. “All I see and hear about is regret and guilt from the people who may have let their guard down or veered away from their usual precautions.”
