Can Rapid Covid-19 Testing Make Crossing the Borders Easy?

The globe was struck with a pandemic after ages and all it went through made a record-breaking impact. Be it the global economy, the quick and rapid COVID-19 testing, or the fast path of trying to develop a COVID-19 Vaccine. As experts consult, the rapid COVID-19 testing is taking better and more votes to bring back the normal flying through countries.

Just last month, the pre-light rapid COVID-19 testing was recognized as an economic aid by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the trade association representing over 260 of the world’s airlines.

Rapid Airline COVID-19 Testing

COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the market for some industries, especially the ones which faced a series of a halt in their services, including the supply-chain and airline industry. With a halt in the airline industry, people in a massive amount went through business disruption as they could not commute for work and other meetings.

China which sees a huge number of inter-state flights and many international flights witnessed a major decline in its economy and traveling issues. Rapid COVID testing would, however, bring ease to not just easy commute but also to the state of work with resuming of inter-national flights.

As per an expert network company, Emirates became the first airline to conduct on-site rapid COVID-19 tests for passengers. Also, industry experts claim that the key and focus of restoring the right of mobility across borders is to be attained only through systematic Covid-19 testing of all travelers before departure.

Alexander de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO said on this that “this will give governments the confidence to open their borders without complicated risk models that see constant changes in the rules imposed on travel. Testing all passengers for COVID-19 will give people back their freedom to travel with confidence. And that will put millions of people back to work.”

Also, the IATA says there is worldwide public support for mandatory pre-departure testing, citing its own public opinion survey, which found that 84% of respondents believe testing should be required of all travelers and 65% think travelers who test negative for Covid-19 should not have to quarantine.

Also Read — Is the Indian economy facing a huge decline due to COVID-19?

However, the people of the U.S. are somewhere a bit less certain and sure about this.

According to the latest Harris Poll Covid-19 tracking survey, less than half of Americans (46%) say on-site rapid same-day testing of airline passengers for Covid-19 would get people flying again.

As compared to 2019, after the pandemic, even after unlocking phases have taken place, the domestic crowd and air travel are still lower than 60%. However, according to the agency’s throughput data, last month around the Labor Day weekend, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened more than 900,000 passengers on just two days out of 30.

According to industry experts, United Airlines, American Airlines, and JetBlue have declared that they will offer pre-flight testing for certain destinations such as Hawaii, Costa Rica, and the Caribbean.

This being done, next the United Airlines is to offer rapid polymerase chain reaction (PCR) nasal-swab tests at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) to the passengers traveling to Hawaii, where a negative FDA-approved test result would let them doge the two weeks quarantine upon arrival. This test costs $250 per passenger, on top of airfare.

Not just this, several major airports in the United States adopted the rapid on-site Covid-19 testing from Miami and Tampa to San Francisco and Dallas.

Rapid-COVID-19 Testing in favor

As per subject-matter experts, rapid antigen tests are faster and cheaper than rapid PCR molecular tests, but they are also considerably less accurate.

With COVID-19 testing becoming a common and normalized state of affairs at U.S airports, convincing the people of the U.S. of safe travel is still a tough task amidst a pandemic that is still rampaging through the United States.

Also, as per the Harris Poll’s latest survey, one-third of Americans (33%) are less likely to fly now than they were three months ago, with a smaller fraction (22%) saying they are more likely.