This week we talk travel and the updated travel guidelines for entering the United States. Now visitors are welcome into the United Stats for tourism, not just business or “essential” travel but will need to show proof of vaccination and will also need to show a negative COVID19 test taken with 3 days of the departure date.
We discuss the options for testing and share our own personal experiences of the simple and economical system we both used successfully on our recent international travel to get back into the US
Raw Transcript
Nick van Terheyden
Hi, this is Dr. Nick, I’m the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business, better health.
Fred Goldstein
And this is Fred Goldstein with Accountable Health. I’m here helping companies with their population health improvement programs, including how to reopen and operate during the COVID pandemic. So neck travel has been an interesting area for this entire pandemic. It’s up, it’s down. Here’s the rule here. Here’s the rule there. What do we do? So where are we traveling now?
Nick van Terheyden
Well, let’s, first of all, let’s talk about volumes. Because I think the big surprise and I’ve got a little bit of extra insight into this, the volume of travel is somewhere of the order of 80 to 90%, pre COVID, which is astounding. That’s us travel. I don’t know about international, actually, specifically on international that is all not all, but the majority of it is domestic with all sorts of new routes being launched by the domestic carriers that are going all around the United States to vacation destinations, and so forth. But the international travel has been exceptionally difficult. And, you know, there were certain countries that went in, just off the charts in terms of pricing Australia was one I heard one way tickets to Australia were running at about 20,000 the economy. I just can’t even imagine and it was all about availability, the flights weren’t there. But as of today, the United States has opened its borders, to international travelers coming in who have been vaccinated, which is excellent news, because that means that we now start to see a little bit more opening, you’ve had the potential to travel, if you had residency in other countries, if you have the privilege of multi nationality, multi residency, which I do, and we’ve certainly traveled. That wasn’t quite true, Canada was different. I know you traveled so maybe you can talk about that. The one important point to note here is that it’s not open season. So it’s not I have a vaccination certificate, you’re allowed in, you have a vaccination certificate, you’re allowed in with an additional test that you and I both experience coming back into the United States, you have to have within the three day window prior to your travel.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah, let’s talk about that, Nick, without really, we’re not here to sell stuff or talk about various companies, etc. And their products. But it was interesting, because you were the one who turned me on to this, and I had a pretty good experience with it. So why don’t you talk a little bit about that testing service and coming back and how it differs from some of the other things,
Nick van Terheyden
I got to say it was super convenient, nothing worse than showing up in a country who knows what the services are, what the wait lines are, whether you’re isolated, you know, you could go into I think the United Kingdom, and you had to get some tests and you had to pre book it, you had to find it, did you know where it was, you’re not allowed to leave your hotel room or wherever you’re isolating. Maybe you were allowed for all sorts of complexity, this service from Emad, which is a US based company essentially used the binax. Now, you know, toil through your nose experience, but it was all done over the internet with a certified provider. So it’s some form of a clinician who watches you through an interaction that was essentially through a webpage on my phone, they watch it, they confirm who you are, you’re already registered with your driver’s license before you go, it’s all set up, you have an app, and then you wait 15 minutes, they look at the results of the test with the lines and say, you are hopefully negative as you and I both workers were back in the United States. Or if you’re positive, then you get a positive result. But it was all done over the web. And in the comfort of my own home. The only thing I needed was a decent internet connection and a mobile phone and obviously, ordering the test beforehand.
Fred Goldstein
Yeah. And to add to that, I mean, it was great that you found it. We had 12 of us go to Canada and had to do tests coming back and I checked with my sister who’s a physician in Canada, and it was about $130 to run the test. And you had to run it through, you know, took a couple days is one of those PCRs it wasn’t rapid. And I know just going up there finding tests was really difficult. Because it wasn’t true. They come back in time. It’s a nerve racking experience. We all talked about it my mother, my brothers and sisters and cousins, and nieces nephews, but then what happened was we get that box and we all went to different hotel rooms. We had six in one room and five in the other the family members and then myself and some others. And we all ran these rapid tests all at once. within about an hour we had 12 have us done. You know, we had to walk some of the elderly folks through how to do the various internet things. But the end of the day, right, it was on my app, went to the airport, open that thing up. Here it is, I can print off the email. It was a great experience extremely pleased with it. And I wish we could set up systems like that for outbound as well.
Nick van Terheyden
Yeah, I and, you know, you bring up an interesting point, the stress. So there’s stress with the PCR that goes, you know, if you did it in country, you go to some place and then can be 24 hours can be more, in fact, this is 15 minutes of stress where you’re go, am I or am I not positive, that was essentially the experience. And actually pretty early on, I could say within probably the first few minutes, I could tell whether I was going to be positive or negative. It’s very like a pregnancy test. It has this lateral flow experience and the line that appears or doesn’t appear. And there’s a control line. It was aside from the waiting and the concern, I could be positive. I mean, there’s always that potential. It was an excellent experience and blow costs. I know lots of people that did multiple tests, I think even you because you weren’t sure that they would be available in time for you to be able to exit and have your necessary tests. For travel.
Fred Goldstein
That’s exactly right to go into Canada actually tested within the 72 hour window, which Canada’s requirement versus three days for us. And I tested at a CVS. And then the next morning, when I was in Denver, I found one at the airport that would do a test. And the Denver Airport one turned faster than the CVS one, it was about 24 hours, the CVS was over 48. I know that some of the places were saying three to five days for a turn, well, that’s not going to do it if you’re trying to travel out bound into some of these countries. The other thing that stunned me with that test kit was how rapidly somebody came onto the internet. When I selected I’m ready to do my test. I mean, how many people are doing these? We had a group of us, but it was just a few minutes max for anybody to get an actual person I want to observe that test very well done.
Nick van Terheyden
That’s exactly right. And I think it’s important. They did have some initial problems because they got volume that they couldn’t account for they’ve obviously done a good sort of flexible scheduling approach. It was truly flawless, very low cost in my experience. And it was one test. I mean, I had a block of them. I took some spares just in case one was, you know, damaged or whatever. But it was an extraordinary so if you’re traveling, certainly coming into the US that would be the way that I would go or returning to the US.
Fred Goldstein
Absolutely. So once again a fantastic week. Nick, this is Fred Goldstein with the Campbell health if you’d like more information or reach out to us, please go to Accountable Health. llc.com
Nick van Terheyden
and this is Dr. Nick on the incrementalist here with incremental insights for better business better health.
