As COVID-19 cases plummet in some parts of the world, 2021 is shaping up to be a hot vaccinated girl summer. The European Union announced last week that it will reopen its borders to nonessential travel this summer, welcoming in eager tourists who have received the necessary jabs.
The summer travel season traditionally begins Memorial Day weekend and, after a year of closed borders, this is welcome news to many. Travel experts predict people will want to hit the beach in particular, especially since it offers outdoor space for people to adequately socially distance. Hotel and resort prices are also expected to spike as a result of increased travel demand and limited supply to contend with social distancing regulations.
People’s wanderlust in 2021 even has a new term coined for it: revenge travel. Nearly 15 months of missed birthdays, baby showers, family reunions and weddings have taken its toll on people, and now they’re planning to travel with a vengeance.
“People feel like their travel wings were clipped,” said Cyndi Zesk, vice president of travel services at AAA Northeast. “Now it’s like, ‘I have the right to roam again, so I’m going to make it matter.'”
And with more opportunities opening up, such as the EU’s 27 member states, travelers are booking flights, hotels and rental cars at much higher rates than normal.
However, although the EU and the U.S. are taking steps to limit travel, especially for those who remain unvaccinated, many health professionals are worried that governments should not ease up on travel restrictions just yet.
“People will think things are back to normal,” said Elizabeth Squillante, a travel adviser from New Canaan, Connecticut. “I don’t believe they will be.”
While the Centers for Disease Control says that fully vaccinated people are less likely to contract and spread the virus, its website notes that “international travel poses additional risks and even fully vaccinated travelers are at increased risk for getting and possibly spreading new COVID-19 variants.”
Because of these risks, the CDC says to keep a close eye on COVID-19 conditions within your travel destination, and it continues to recommend that unvaccinated people do not travel at all.
“If you do not follow your destination’s requirements, you may be denied entry and required to return to the United States,” says the CDC’s website.
To properly allow for travel, the EU and the U.S. are also collaborating on creating vaccine certificates. Though the details are still being hashed out, EU and U.S. officials are in discussion on how to “practically and technologically make vaccine certificates from each place broadly readable.” In the meantime, a low-tech solution would allow a country’s government to issue certificates to travelers that could allow them to travel within the EU or to the U.S.
“Because one thing is clear: All 27 member states will accept, unconditionally, all those who are vaccinated with vaccines that are approved by E.M.A.,” said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission. The European Medicines Agency, the bloc’s drugs regulator, has approved all three vaccines being used in the U.S., namely the Moderna, Pfizer/BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson shots.
Von der Leyen added that the U.S. has made “huge progress,” and that it’s on track to vaccinate 70 percent of its adult population by mid-June, thus reaching the threshold of reaching herd immunity.
Some EU members, such as Austria and Finland, continue to have strict restrictions in place that keep hotels closed and maintain enforced quarantines. Other member states, such as Greece, Spain and Italy, are ready to open their borders to make up for a year’s worth of lost tourism revenue.
If you choose to travel this summer, says the CDC, it’s important to remain vigilant even if you’ve been fully vaccinated and to keep others safe by getting a COVID test three to five days after you’ve returned from your trip. And overall, this summer is looking much more travel-friendly than summer 2020, so get those shots so that you can get your revenge on last year’s lack of adventure.
Photo: Travel may surge this summer as borders reopen. credit: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/world/europe/coronavirus-EU-American-travel-ban.html
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