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European Union ambassadors agreed Wednesday to relax travel restrictions and allow in fully vaccinated visitors — but roadblocks remain for Americans who can’t remember the last time they saw Paris and wish to see it again.
EU Commission spokesman Christian Wigand said that the 27 member states should ease restrictions. “The Council should also soon expand the list of non-EU countries with a good epidemiological situation from where travel is permitted,” he said.
Currently, the U.S. does not qualify under EU guidelines for travel access (no more than 25 new coronavirus cases per 100,000 people within the previous 14 days). EU officials are expected to settle on a limit of countries that have no more than 75 cases per 100,000.
What’s more, no date has been given for the relaxation of existing measures, and individual countries can still set their own requirements for whom they allow in and what kind of quarantine arrangements, if any, they will be subject to upon arrival.
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EU countries can still set their own requirements for who they allow in and what kind of quarantine arrangements, if any, they will be subject to upon arrival.
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Case in point: While Greece allows vaccinated tourists from the EU, the U.S. and several other countries in order to provide a lifeline to the country’s economy, which is heavily dependent on tourism, Ireland still does not recommend tourists from other countries.
Vaccinated travelers to Ireland do not have to undergo a mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine; however, they must still quarantine upon arrival. (Ireland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, said unrestricted travel for people flying from the U.S. could happen by July.)
“A person who is exempt from mandatory hotel quarantine or released from hotel quarantine early is still legally required to have a negative pre-departure RT-PCR test and to complete a period of self-quarantine at home/at the address given on the Passenger Locator Form,” Ireland’s Department of Foreign Affairs says.
As for Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron said last month that France will be open to vaccinated U.S. tourists on June 9 with a “Pass Sanitaire” (Health Pass) to prove they’re vaccinated with an approved vaccine. For those booking tickets, these rules can also be revoked.
Coronavirus vaccines currently authorized by the European Medicines Agency include those made by Pfizer-BioNTech
PFE,
BNTX,
Moderna
MRNA,
AstraZeneca
AZN,
and Johnson & Johnson
JNJ,
One more cautionary note for travelers: Most airlines allow travelers to book the middle seats on flights, despite a recent study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggesting that blocking the middle seat reduces exposure to viruses, including the one that causes COVID-19.
“Physical distancing of aircraft passengers, including through policies such as middle seat vacancy, could provide additional reductions in SARS-COV-2 exposure risk,” the report noted. The CDC recently released new travel guidance for people who are fully vaccinated.
