• This Monday, November 8, the United States opened its borders to foreign travelers, after 23 months of strict closures.

  • Only people from a list of 35 countries, fully vaccinated and with a negative Covid test can travel to American soil.

  • Despite these precautions, the epidemic situation in the United States and Europe does not seem the most favorable for such lifting of restrictions.

After Australia and Thailand, it is the turn of the United States to partially reopen its borders to travelers from Monday.

They had been closed for almost two years, twenty months to be precise.

Good news for the tourism sector, business travel and families separated for long months, but perhaps less for the management and control of the pandemic.

Could this upturn in global tourism lead to an epidemic outbreak? 

20 Minutes

takes stock.

Are the control measures sufficient to prevent the spread of the virus between the American continent and the rest of the world?

The United States has certainly reopened its borders, but not under any conditions. Washington has provided a list of 33 countries whose nationals are allowed to travel to US soil. All these travelers must show proof of a complete vaccination schedule if they are over 18 years of age. On top of that, they must show a negative Covid test within 72 hours. Children traveling with their parents will need to have a negative screening test within three days.

For the epidemiologist and director of the Institute of Global Health at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva Antoine Flahault, all these precautions are not 100% effective.

"Europe has remained relatively open with more or less strict health protocols but requiring for the most part the health pass and often PCR tests as well, but we can now see that it has one of the worst health performance of the planet.

It is therefore likely that the opening of North American borders will in turn increase the circulation of the virus in the United States and with the countries which will be connected to them, ”projects the expert.

How is reopening US borders different from others?

The opening of US borders to foreign tourists comes nearly two weeks after those of Thailand and a week after Australia.

Common point between the three nations, their borders had remained strictly closed since the start of the pandemic.

However, the effects of these reopenings should be very different depending on the country.

Indeed, as soon as the announcement of the reopening of the American borders, the reservations of plane tickets jumped.

British Airways has seen searches for flights and stays to certain American cities explode by 900% for the days leading up to Christmas, compared to the week before the US government's announcement.

At American Airlines, the day after the announcement, reservations jumped 66% to the United Kingdom, 40% to Europe and 74% to Brazil.

Was this the right time to reopen the borders?

On the American and European side, the epidemic situation is far from being under control.

The World Health Organization (WHO) expressed concern on Thursday about the rate of transmission of the Covid-19 virus currently "very worrying" in the 53 countries of the European region.

On the other side of the Atlantic, "the United States is entering the cold season on a very high level of contamination, with more than 70,000 cases and 1,000 daily deaths," reports Antoine Flahault.

Despite strong vaccine coverage on both sides, the two continents are not at all finished with the pandemic.

The risk of reaching new peaks of contamination and of generating an overload on the health system like last winter is therefore far from zero.

"If vaccination is not enough to limit the saturation of hospitals, strong measures may have to be taken again at a certain time this winter", warns the epidemiologist.

Will there be a good time to reopen the borders?

A little more than two years after the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is clear that the countries with the best health performance "are those which have completely closed their borders to travelers", underlines Antoine Flahault. But for the expert, the psychological impact of this policy should not be minimized either. “It turned out to be very heavy on the social level for the populations who felt captive or for many of them who were unable to see their families and relatives who remained abroad”.

"The very strict measures that were taken until now were not intended to last over time, they were designed as emergency measures", continues Antoine Flahault.

After 23 months of strict closures and a pandemic that sets in over time, the United States is therefore trying to restore a life closer to normal, even if this involves an element of risk.

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  • Anti-covid vaccine

  • Covid 19

  • epidemic

  • Coronavirus

  • Borders

  • Airplane

  • United States

  • Trip

  • Health