BRENT PIN­HEIRO
brent.pin­heiro@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed States will now re­quire all in­bound trav­ellers, re­gard­less of na­tion­al­i­ty or vac­ci­na­tion sta­tus, to pro­vide a neg­a­tive COVID-19 test re­sult tak­en one day pri­or to trav­el. The up­dat­ed reg­u­la­tion comes in­to force ear­ly next week, al­though the ex­act date is still un­known.

Orig­i­nal­ly the US re­quired tests be tak­en three days in ad­vance, but the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion says the tighter test­ing time­line will add a ‘de­gree of pub­lic pro­tec­tion’. The move comes as sci­en­tists con­tin­ue to as­sess the Omi­cron vari­ant.

At this time, all air pas­sen­gers two years and old­er must present a neg­a­tive re­sult or doc­u­men­ta­tion of re­cov­ery from COVID-19 when check­ing in for a US-bound flight. Rapid anti­gen and PCR test re­sults are ac­cept­ed. All non-US trav­ellers are re­quired to be ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed to en­ter the Unit­ed States un­less ex­empt.

In T&T anti­gen tests start at $300 and re­sults are usu­al­ly avail­able in 20-30 mins. PCR tests start at $900, and it usu­al­ly takes 24-48 hrs to get back re­sults.