European Union Opening To Vaccinated Americans This Summer

My buddy Stuart is going to love this.

Who cares about kids?
Leave them at home.

And file this one in the "I'll believe it when I see it" column

Pfizer applied for EUA to offer the vaccine to kids as young as 12, so it looks more likely that vaccinations will be extended to kids rather than kids being let in unvaccinated.

"Follow the science." Yea right. Don't mind the folks that caught C19 and have immunity.

Can't wait to see more and more stories about the vaccinated getting reinfected throughout the next year.. What a CF

I gave two little ones, 1 and 3...seems like most places will allow kinds under 2 to enter, but 2-16 is the gray area..

This is going to be interesting. CDC continues to recommend Americans don't travel but sits quietly as its political brethren at Team Biden opens the boarder to EU passport holders - and leaves accesses from India wide open. Another new low in mixed messages. Is it too much to expect a government with functional communication skills?

Really happy about this and looking forward to seeing family in Germany and maybe making a vacation trip somewhere else. now that we are fully vaccinated.

First time I have seen someone use the BioNTech reference. I was just speaking with my step mother in Germany and she said she just got that vaccine. Had to Google it to determine it's the name also used in Europe for the Pfizer vaccine. Interesting was that she mentioned Germany is implementing a 6 week timeframe between the first and second shot.

As it stands, even with travel allowed many countries still have quarantine requirements... will be a while for all of this to shake out.

So many open questions, besides the ones you already mentioned, one that might be of higher relevance within short is how do different vaccines cope with escape mutations... in other words, are all vaccines equal? Imagine a situation where you are let in and your spouse is not because of a different vaccine...

And BTW, keep in mind this is not VdL's call, she might have an opinion, she might express a wish and that's it...

Politicians have maneuvered themselves and their countries in corners from which getting out will be very difficult indeed...

First time I have seen someone use the BioNTech reference. I was just speaking with my step mother in Germany and she said she just got that vaccine. Had to Google it to determine it’s the name also used in Europe for the Pfizer vaccine. Interesting was that she mentioned Germany is implementing a 6 week timeframe between the first and second shot.
— Christian

A husband/wife pair of Turkish-German scientists developed the actual science behind the Pfizer vaccine. Their company is BioNTech, and they hold all the patents. They partnered with Pfizer to administer large-scale clinical trials and ramp-up mass production.

Cyprus is also open to those travelling from the US as of now. The US is on the red list which means a test before departure and a test on arrival and if negative, people are free to roam. This is regardless of whether people are vaccinated. From 1 May, they are expecting to open the doors to all who are vaccinated. Like Greece though Cyprus is in a two week strict lockdown at the moment.

Also, in the U.K., all approved vaccines (AZ, Mod, Pf) are administered 11-12 weeks apart. It was part of the strategy to give as many people as possible some form of protection!

@Phillip. Cyprus will allow fully vaccinated visitors from the US to enter without testing or any other restrictions as of May 10 (not May 1). They currently define fully vaccinated as having had the second dose (or one JJ dose) but I suspect they will correct that by May 10 to 2 weeks after the second dose.

@Phillip, “Also, in the U.K., all approved vaccines (AZ, Mod, Pf) are administered 11-12 weeks apart. It was part of the strategy to give as many people as possible some form of protection!”

Many countries did this. And I thought the US should have, but it’s become a moot point now. Vaccine supply is no longer a constraint in most of the US, idiocy of potential recipients is.

@VitaliU Thanks for the date update.

With regards to time after vaccinations, Cyprus is currently publishing a detailed list which varies based on each vaccine:

*Time frames for travel purposes

Janssen / Johnson & Johnson Vaccine
Fourteen (14) days must elapse between the completion of the required dose of the vaccine (1-dose vaccine) and the date of travel.

Vaxzevria Vaccine (AstraZeneca)
Seven (7 days) must elapse between the completion of the required doses of the vaccine, (2-dose vaccine) and the date of travel.

Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine
Seven (7 days) days must elapse between the completion of the required doses of the vaccine, (2-dose vaccine) and the date of travel.

Moderna Vaccine
Fourteen (14) must elapse between the completion of the required doses of the vaccine, ( 2-dose vaccine) and the date of travel.

Ben- I didn't realize that Iceland wasn't allowing unvaccinated non-vaccine eligible children to enter with their parents. Can you point to a source on this?

According to https://visiticeland.com/article/iceland-and-covid19-coronavirus, "If a child travels with a parent/custodian who has a certificate of exemption at the border, it must then be tested at the border but does not have to go into quarantine. While waiting for the test results the child needs to follow the rules for quarantine."

I took this to mean that the child will need to quarantine until results of the on-arrival test results come back, which according to that same page should take between 6-24 hours.

@Reaper AZ ran some of their initial trials with the longer periods between vaccinations - which ultimately also resulted in slightly messier results than the Pf and Mod. When the U.K. announced the 11-12 week gap, Pfeizer was very quick to say that they could only recommend a gap of 3 weeks because that was the only time period they trialled (to begin with anyway). I’m sure there will soon me more real life data on that subject soon.

so what about EU into USA? I mean if you can get a Pfizer over here that is 😉

Ben

Once again there is NO travel ban by the US for the EU.

The ban is against countries in the Schengen Zone. Plus separatly the UK and Republic of Ireland

There are EU members who aren't in Schengen and they aren't banned - Croatia for example.

Someone above mentioned Cyprus which is aos in the EU but not in Schengen.

There are non EU countries who are members of Schengen but not the EU and so are banned as per the Presidential Proclamations.

Hopefully the Swiss follow suit, (and of course, Uncle Joe removing testing requirements to fly back to US) then it’s game on for Fall

Fantastic. All the American tourist $$$ without the obese, obnoxious personalities (who are inevitably anti-vaxxers). Win for all!

The most interesting part will be: what will be required to prove vaccination? The administration of this could be quite a challenge

@Aussie:

Unfortunately those anti-vaxxers will probably still be getting in with fraudulent CDC vaccination cards. Hopefully the EU requires more verification than those.

So.. how are we supposed to prove our vaccination status at immigration? Just with a scrap of paper CDC card that anyone can forge?

How to prove your vaccine status? Here’s an example from NY State. Download the NYS wallet app from the AppStore and enter your info. If you can successfully answer the questions you get a digital vax card it seems valid for 6 months since last jab. Subject to change, probably. But you can at least show authorities you have been vaccines in NY State. Eventually I’d expect this to become a federal digital ID but as we all know this could take some time.

Returning to USA there is still conflicting info. I work at AF and our database shows conflicting info , as an example, if you wanted to return from Greece to America today it says vaccinated Americans don’t need a Covid test to return. Then the next line says you do. Imagine everyone who updates Covid travel rules are in a bit of a crunch.

Long story short, be careful about booking too soon and try to book refundable hotels!

I'm glad that they are limiting travel to vaccinated people. Hopefully anyone caught trying to pass off forged vaccination certificates is severely punished to send a message. I will consider going to Europe this summer IF things are actually opening up. If covid numbers continue to be high there and/or there are significant restrictions I see no reason to spend the money to travel there for that. I believe many european countries will want to open up as much as possible for tourism to help their tourism economies recover. That being said if they can't get their covid numbers down I don't expect it to be a very good experience until they get their population mostly vaccinated. Don't see that happening by early summer.

@ John L

"Can’t wait to see more and more stories about the vaccinated getting reinfected throughout the next year.. What a CF"

jackass rooting for vaccine failure.

@Ben
While this is widely reported, immigration and quarantine is not under the remit of the European Commission and Ursula von der Leyen can't promise on behalf of the individual countries. That would be like the Biden administration promising to reduce state level taxes. Each country will decide what they will and will not do, and have full power to do so. Greece has already opened, other EU countries have not. Some may not open by the time line wished by the commission president.