New European protocol for vaccinated travelers
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control have released a new Aviation Health Safety Protocol that provides updated guidelines for air travel.
Notable changes include updated guidelines for vaccinated or recovered passengers.
The updated protocol makes it clear that passengers who have been vaccinated or fully recovered do not need to be tested or quarantined, unlike those coming from high-risk areas or areas of Covid variants.
Andrea Amon, director of the European Center for Disease Prevention, said the start of vaccination programs allows some measures to be relaxed for fully vaccinated travelers, "but if measures are eased too early also for unvaccinated people, we may see a rapid rise in cases again." .
She added that in order to effectively control community transmission of the virus, we need to continue to spread vaccination and be vigilant until a sufficient proportion of the population has received their vaccine.
In the new guidelines, the European Center for Disease Prevention and the European Union Aviation Safety Agency establish a framework to ensure "that verification of proof of vaccination or recovery should not cause bottlenecks and queues in airport operations."
The protocol recommends checking vaccination information once per flight, preferably prior to arrival at the airport of departure.
The recommendations contained in the new protocol are not binding on EU member states, which means they are not obligated to adopt them.
Guidelines are subject to change at any time as understanding of the virus and safety protocols improves.
The updated Aviation Health Safety Protocol states that current evidence regarding protection of prior natural immunity from new variants of the virus and duration of immunity after vaccination is relatively limited, and therefore this advice may change when other evidence becomes available.
While there is clear optimism about the effectiveness of vaccination, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and the European Center for Disease Prevention stress that non-pharmaceutical safety protocols must remain in place, such as "wearing medical face masks, hygiene measures, and physical distancing".
These measures are recommended on all flights within and outside the European Union.
The protocol also advises airlines and airports to vaccinate their employees by “informing their employees about the benefits of vaccination and encouraging them, as much as possible, to vaccinate against Covid 19.”
However, the guidelines emphasize that vaccination is not 100 percent effective and that most parts of the world are not vaccinated, so traditional safety measures such as distancing and hygiene must be observed.
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