To the Editor:
New federal government rules, recommendations, and restrictions declare that travel must be avoided to every country in the Western Hemisphere plus most countries in the rest of the world because they have dangerous levels of COVID-19 present. (Except China and a few others.)
But, if you must travel, the CDC recommends you get viral COVID-19 test with a negative result. However, they go on to describe the efficacy of the test as limited to excluding the virus infection for only the moment in time of collecting the sample. Even then, a negative result is no assurance because you still may be infected if the sample is collected too early in your infection cycle. Also, you can become infected anytime after the moment of the test and infect others.
Persons flying into the U.S require documentation of a recovery or a negative test taken within three days of their flight. I see the logic of using recovery documentation, vaccination records, and positive test results to make restrictive policies, even though the efficacy of all these proofs aren’t 100 percent either. But, what’s the justification for using unreliable, momentary, test results to make restrictive policies made to look like public protections that clearly are not? Assuming that all the CDC statements about negative tests are true; relying on the results to restrict travel seems to be another useless , smoke and mirrors policy flavor of the day. What’s far worse, is the CDC and the federal government is remaining mute on the extreme dangers to all of us by allowing persons on our southern border to walk, swim, raft, and bus into the U.S. with no documents or medical certifications at all. Especially because they are traveling from countries listed by the CDC as those “everyone in the U.S. should avoid all travel to, due their high levels of COVID-19.”
Robert Moore
Village of Rio Grande