Many travellers, after their vaccination appointment, started calculating when they would be fully protected so they can start travelling again.
However, since the Delta variant has caused a rise in the COVID_19 cases globally, even amongst vaccinated people, travellers have started reconsidering their bookings.
Especially in the USA, according to a survey by Travel Again, 61% of leisure travellers feel less confident about travelling due to the prevalence of the corona variants. But are these fears valid?
What specialists say
According to the specialist epidemiologists of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and the RTI International Research Institute, how safe it is to travel differs from person to person. During the pandemic, safety covers a wide range and requires considering personal danger, rewards and compromises. That is to say, the danger factors of each trip need to be taken into account. For example, a road trip within the country that includes staying at private lodging, avoiding going inside restaurants as well as crowded indoor spaces, is at the lower side of the danger range, while an international trip that includes many layovers, taxi rides and restaurants, understandably involves more risk.
For this reason, the specialists recommend that travellers take into account the danger at their destination. Before visiting an area, the travellers need to find out whether the COVID_19 cases there are <10% which means that it will be less dangerous. At the same time, they need to learn about local guidelines concerning mask use, the size of permitted gatherings, and the availability of and access to activities and tourist sights.
Another important element is personal danger. When someone decides to travel without having had the chance, for whatever reason, to get vaccinated, or when they live with unvaccinated persons, like children, the danger is much higher, compared to that of a fully vaccinated person. And even though all experts agree that it’s not yet known how a fully vaccinated organism will react in the case of a variant infection, what is certain is that fully vaccinated people can transmit the virus to other people.
Important protection advice for travellers
In the end, the decision to travel at this time is a personal one, and in order to make it, each person needs to take into account their vaccination condition and health, as well as those of the people they live with, and, of course, each destination’s danger level. But, above all, the specialists agree that the best thing in order for travellers to stay safe from variants is to get vaccinated, since the vaccines are incredibly effective against the spread of COVID_19, while in case of infection, they protect from the serious disease and side effects.
Finally, from the beginning of the pandemic, the use of masks, personal hygiene, and social distancing are all equally important, especially in indoor spaces.
