LONDON (CNN) – Passengers arriving in the United States must take a negative test for COVID-19 before departure, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late Thursday night.
Passengers will be required to have a negative PCR or antigen test within 72 hours of boarding their flight from the UK to the US. Passengers must also provide documentation of their laboratory results, either on paper or electronically.
Airlines are asked to confirm the test results before the flight, and passengers will not be allowed to board if they refuse a test or provide documentation.
The order is in response to a new variant of coronavirus that is said to have originated in the UK and is potentially more transmissible. Since the discovery of the variant, more than 40 countries have restricted travel in the UK and, in some cases, travel from other countries that have documented cases with the variant.
“On March 14, President Trump issued a presidential proclamation to suspend the entry of foreign nationals who have visited the United Kingdom in the past 14 days,” the CDC said in a statement. “This has reduced air travel to the United States from the United Kingdom by about 90%. This additional testing requirement will strengthen the protection of the American public to improve their health and safety and ensure responsible international travel.”
The agency said the order would be signed on Friday and will take effect on Monday.
Genetic experts have expressed preliminary concerns that COVID-19 vaccines may be less effective against this new variant. Pfizer and Moderna are testing their vaccines to see if they work against the new variant.
The variant of the coronavirus in the UK has not been identified through genetic sequencing efforts in the US, the CDC said on Tuesday. But this may be due to the fact that the US surveillance system does not catch him.
“He may be in the United States and may not have detected this yet,” Deputy Secretary of Health Admiral Brett Giroir said Monday.
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