2021 Travel Guide: Covid Restrictions, Vaccine, Flight Cancellations, Cruises and More - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/travel/flight-cancellations-cruise-ships-covid-vaccine.html
The travel world has been on a roller coaster in 2020. Even as vaccination campaigns started in the United States and Europe, countries slammed shut their borders to visitors from the United Kingdom, because of a new strain of the coronavirus. And while the number of people flying in the United States is again on the rise — topping 1 million a day on the weekend before Christmas — a patchwork of quarantine and testing regulations remains in place in many parts of the country. Worldwide, Covid-19 has killed more than 1.5 million people, sickened millions more and short-circuited economies. Of all the industries reeling from its destructive impact, the travel industry was upended like no other.
Travel has been changed by past calamities. Safety measures instituted after the 9/11 attacks are now just part of the travel experience. It’s unclear just which changes to the travel landscape will be in place a year from now — or 10 years on — but some answers are starting to come into focus. On the brink of the new year, we looked at nine of the most pressing queries facing the travel industry and individual travelers — here are the answers.
In November, Qantas Airlines announced that once a coronavirus vaccine was available, passengers hoping to fly on the airline would need to prove that they had taken it. Alan Joyce, the airline’s chief executive, described the need for proof of vaccination as “a necessity.” “I think that’s going to be a common thing talking to my colleagues in other airlines around the globe,” he said.
Indeed, many airlines are currently testing technology to streamline the health documentation process, including mobile health apps like CommonPass, ICC AOKpass and VeriFLY to ensure travelers can present their health data in a secure, verifiable way. It’s not known yet whether some kind of universal health form or certificate will be required to travel because that would require participation from various countries and organizations, but that’s happened before. The International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis, known to many as the carte jaune or yellow card, was originally created in the mid 1930s by the World Health Organization. Versions were used as proof for vaccination against diseases including yellow fever, typhus and smallpox, and many countries still require proof of certain vaccinations when traveling. For those travelers who have relocated to foreign countries over the years, the possibility of sharing personal health information isn’t unusual, as many visa and residency applications call for medical exams.
Today’s apps have to address a host of issues around carrying health data, including privacy and standardization. For one, nobody wants to carry around a printed health record that could contain sensitive information in addition to proof of testing or vaccination. For another, such records could be forged with image-editing tools. And in this increasingly global world, a traveler’s health documents could be written in a language that is unfamiliar to an airport official. The Commons Project, the nonprofit that is developing the CommonPass, said its app connects with websites for medical facilities, and those sites then load verification of completed test or vaccine record inside the app, limiting the amount of private information that is shared. Others are taking a similar approach.A common request from people across the industry is for governments to work together to standardize testing and vaccination requirements. For example, travelers who are vaccinated in the United States should know that their vaccination and documentation is valid in Thailand and vice versa.
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