Opinion / Christopher Cermak
Travel bug
When we interviewed Tony Blair for Monocle’s April issue, he made two predictions: that the introduction of vaccine passports was inevitable and that the EU’s slow start on coronavirus vaccinations would be forgotten by the summer. Fast-forward to July and the situation has indeed reversed – at least in part. Yes, the UK and US have vaccinated more of their populations and are closer to fully opening domestically than many EU nations – but they’ve been frustratingly slow off the mark compared to the EU when it comes to relaunching travel.
Just look at the difference in transatlantic jaunts; Americans are now free to travel to much of Europe but not vice versa (a lack of reciprocation that feels more Trumpian than Biden-like), while UK-US travel is mostly barred in either direction. The aviation route from London to New York, one of the world’s busiest, remains mothballed – even if you’re fully vaccinated. Promises that vaccine passports will be introduced and the transatlantic corridor reopened in “late summer” remain frustratingly vague, even though nearly all of the EU introduced vaccine passports this month.
I write this not as a personal complaint – as an American citizen I can travel to the US freely and without quarantine (Americans abroad can’t possibly have coronavirus, can they?) – but because so much of this still flies in the face of common sense. Domestically, countries are returning to relative normality: sports stadiums are being filled on either side of the Atlantic (last week I attended Wimbledon at near-full capacity, only needing a negative test), despite the fact that the much-ballyhooed Delta variant continues to spread in both nations. It’s a sign that we’re accepting a certain amount of risk that we probably wouldn’t have welcomed eight months ago. And yet we’re still overly cautious on travel? Even for the doubly vaccinated? Something just doesn’t add up.
Originally Appeared On: https://monocle.com/minute/2021/07/06/