Can we start traveling as soon as you’re vaccinated for the coronavirus? The answer is complicated, balancing personal risk and the safety of others.
In many countries, institutions, and travel businesses are requiring citizens to take the Covid-19 vaccines, but not for the United States.
Airline executives have gone on record to state that in the future, their planes will only accept passengers with proof of vaccination. Theme parks around the world are also looking into vaccination as a condition for entry, and cruise lines have already told their lawyers to look into the legalities of such a demand.
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It seems clear that a traveler’s need for vaccination is likely to vary depending on the mode of transport and the final destination. Even if the shots aren’t a requirement, they’ll probably be the key to easier entry.
What’s not so clear is how long after vaccination you have to wait to undertake nonessential travel.
Based on current knowledge, here’s what experts think.
The risks for you
First, you should receive all doses before deciding anything. According to official health guidance in the United Kingdom, Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine was designed to be given in two doses 21 days apart, while AstraZeneca’s involves two injections spaced between 4 and 12 weeks apart. The Moderna vaccine comprises two doses spaced 28 days apart. (An upcoming Johnson & Johnson formula will only require a single dose.)
Although some people have regarded their first dose as a license to travel and party, don’t try to resume normal life in between doses—we simply don’t have the data to know if you’ll be adequately protected or whether you’ll infect others.
The data doesn’t even tell us for sure whether a vaccinated person can still unknowingly transmit the virus.
Assume, then, that vaccinated people aren’t bulletproof from infection. “A vaccine that is 95% effective means that about 1 out of 20 people who get it may not have protection from getting the illness.” Johns Hopkins Medicine explained.
For all those reasons, Johns Hopkins advises that “until more is understood about how well the vaccine works, continuing with precautions such as mask-wearing and physical distancing will be important.”
That’s a common theme in the medical community. “Experts want to learn more about the protection that a Covid-19 vaccine provides and how long immunity lasts before changing safety recommendations.” Mayo Clinic stated.
That settles the question of whether we’ll still be wearing masks and practicing social distancing for a period after the vaccine rollout. We will.
The risks for others
Another reason why a needle jab shouldn’t immediately set would-be travelers free to roam has to do with math.
If everyone in your family has been vaccinated, it follows that you’d be able to resume normal interactions within that social bubble. But when you leave that cloistered group, there’s the matter of all the strangers you’d come in contact with on your travels.
Eventually, scientists hope, enough of the population will have received the vaccine that the likelihood of encountering Covid-19 in public diminishes to an acceptable risk level. That’s the concept—much discussed, little understood—known as herd immunity.
The World Health Organization says that with a disease like measles, 95% of the population needs to be vaccinated before the remaining 5% of unvaccinated people are deemed to have sufficient protection. For polio, the percentage is much lower—about 80%.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control doesn’t currently have a firm target figure for Covid-19. From the agency’s website: “Experts do not know what percentage of people would need to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity to Covid-19.”
In late November, America’s top infectious-disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, said, “I would imagine it’s somewhere between 75% and 85% at least.” But that was before the emergence of new, more transmissible strains of the Covid-19 virus made the calculations more complicated.
Because of all these variables, a vaccine “is not a carte blanche to resume normalcy,” according to Dr. Vin Gupta, a health metrics expert at the University of Washington and an NBC News medical contributor who received the first dose of the vaccine in December. Gupta predicts Americans won’t be able to resume normal interactions until at least the second half of 2021.
Many governments and businesses may choose to delay opening fully until herd immunity is reached.
That’s not just conjecture. Australian Medical Association president Omar Khorshid recently told reporters that he expects his country’s required 14-day arrival quarantine system to remain in place “until we have at least all of our vulnerable population vaccinated, and possibly the entire population.” Khorshid’s opinion was echoed by the heads of several Australian states, which set quarantine rules there.
So it’s possible to travel after vaccination—but you won’t be fully protected yet and you’ll still have to follow all local health restrictions and protocols. You can also still potentially get sick or sicken others without knowing.
For full protection as we move around the world, we have to wait for herd immunity, which means vaccinating as many people as possible.
Will you be allowed to travel freely once you’ve got your vaccine? That all depends on how much risk governments and businesses are willing to accept.
Because of overburdened health care systems and the lingering potential for outbreaks, don’t expect every place to welcome vaccinated people with open arms until herd immunity has been achieved. Until then, test results will remain a crucial gatekeeper.
Vaccines can clear individuals for takeoff. But it will take all of society to get us moving down the runway, according to the Frommers