European Union will bar travelers from the US (and others). US does not make the cut, too out of control

[ronandannette]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1276473094627037184

Canadian borders are still closed to all non-essential traffic. We are not allowing entry to anybody (by air, land or sea) other than Canadian citizens, unless they individually fall into a few specific "waiver" categories. Canadians can leave and return home but must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. There is no special arrangement with Germany.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7092500/coronavirus-canada-border-closure/

 

[Fldisneyfamily4321]

I got covid in the UK When I got back to the US I was sick for several weeks , it was disheartening to see the nightmare situation at UK beaches the other day .. they are making the same mistakes the US has made .

 

[Fldisneyfamily4321]

I do think it’s hilarious that people are talking about how bad the situation is in the US yet still planning trips to disneyworld the minute it opens .. BTW it’s a TERRIBLE idea to open any theme park right now , they should stay closed including Disney springs .

 

[donaldbuzz&minnie]

The most telling graphic I've seen is the one that displays the "curves" between March and June of the US and the EU. Both were high in April. The US continued to go up. The EU down. Democracies can cope, but require national leadership. We could look like Europe right now if we had done what Europe did.

 

[bavaria]

Canadian borders are still closed to all non-essential traffic. We are not allowing entry to anybody (by air, land or sea) other than Canadian citizens, unless they individually fall into a few specific "waiver" categories. Canadians can leave and return home but must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. There is no special arrangement with Germany.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7092500/coronavirus-canada-border-closure/

There have been people flying throughout the last several months including to/from Canada daily, including flights to/from the US, China, and Europe. There are many people who are able to fly, and who are flying, globally. You may not have personal experience of this but let me assure you that there are flights and people every day crossing borders, including into Canada from around the globe.

And Canadians can and have been able to fly from Canada all along, so long as they meet entry requirements of their destination country. Feel free to read other more factual travel fora such as Flyertalk.

Americans are also in some cases still able to travel to the EU, currently, even if they do not meet the current restrictions. Germany has a very strong medical tourism sector, and hospitals and cancer centres often have travel departments to facilitate visas and travel arrangements. An American poster on Flyertalk left about 10 days ago from California, had his treatment in Germany, and is now back at home.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I don't have a problem with this and I even mentioned it on the News Thread before it was announced with respect to a UK tour company canceling FL (mainly regarding WDW) tours because they didn't like the mask requirement and I think a few other things that didn't make them say their tours provided a relaxing vacation. I posited that I wondered if that was the real reason vs the potential block of U.S. citizens to the EU (even though the UK is not part of the EU).

I don't know how many Europeans are highly interested in going to the U.S. at this point. I'm not even sure I'm comfortable yet with international travel (Caribbean, Europe, etc) Heck I'm not even sure I'd want to fly to HI when they allow that. But I see this as the same as states who are unable to necessarily really truly be able to block travel at such a large level of all the states but impose restrictions such as quarantines (which are typically long enough that true leisure travel doesn't make as much sense-it's used as a deterrent). It's a fluid situation in which case states will get added and removed as time goes on so it stands to make sense that countries get added and removed over time. But I'm not really interested in a bashing scenario of country vs country and look at it from a more practical matter.

 

[SirDuff]

There have been people flying throughout the last several months including to/from Canada daily, including flights to/from the US, China, and Europe. There are many people who are able to fly, and who are flying, globally. You may not have personal experience of this but let me assure you that there are flights and people every day crossing borders, including into Canada from around the globe.

And Canadians can and have been able to fly from Canada all along, so long as they meet entry requirements of their destination country. Feel free to read other more factual travel fora such as Flyertalk.

Americans are also in some cases still able to travel to the EU, currently, even if they do not meet the current restrictions. Germany has a very strong medical tourism sector, and hospitals and cancer centres often have travel departments to facilitate visas and travel arrangements. An American poster on Flyertalk left about 10 days ago from California, had his treatment in Germany, and is now back at home.

This is why you aren’t allowed to stay away so long ever again!

Question - do you know if/how the US (or other countries) are checking that you haven’t been to a “banned” country if your flight is from a “safe“ country? As you know, I’m a Canadian lIrving in Europe. I have no problem returning home (though I have to self-isolate on arrival) but I’m not allowed into the US. I have no intention of doing so, but, if I flew into Canada and then into the US (less than 14 days after arriving in Canada), would the US check my passport to see if I had been in Europe? Honour system? Since I have two passports (national passport and diplomatic passport), I could possibly have my Schengen exit stamp in the diplomatic passport (though even if traveling for work, they usually like to stamp my national passport). Again, not something I would do.

Actually, I had just arrived in Canada from the US on the day that Trump announced the ban on Europe travelers and was supposeed to return home via the US (just a connection). Since I was still within 14 days of having left Europe, I just had my routing changed (actually to much better routing - it had just been too expensive originally), rather than worry about it,

 

[bavaria]

This is why you aren’t allowed to stay away so long ever again!

Question - do you know if/how the US (or other countries) are checking that you haven’t been to a “banned” country if your flight is from a “safe“ country? As you know, I’m a Canadian lIrving in Europe. I have no problem returning home (though I have to self-isolate on arrival) but I’m not allowed into the US. I have no intention of doing so, but, if I flew into Canada and then into the US (less than 14 days after arriving in Canada), would the US check my passport to see if I had been in Europe? Honour system? Since I have two passports (national passport and diplomatic passport), I could possibly have my Schengen exit stamp in the diplomatic passport (though even if traveling for work, they usually like to stamp my national passport). Again, not something I would do.

Actually, I had just arrived in Canada from the US on the day that Trump announced the ban on Europe travelers and was supposeed to return home via the US (just a connection). Since I was still within 14 days of having left Europe, I just had my routing changed (actually to much better routing - it had just been too expensive originally), rather than worry about it,

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...ovid19/visitors-foreign-workers-students.html
Some people don't realise, or forget, that we live in a global society. Every day there are people with dual (or more) citizenship, permanent residents, essential workers, low wage foreign workers, returning travellers who only now are coming 'home', and international students travelling globally, including to and from Canada. The China-Canada flights have been very busy transporting international students for instance, along with people moving around for other purposes. Remember that Trudeau never stopped those flights earlier in the year. Some carriers never stopped Canada-US flights during the entire period, and are having to increase capacity. Aeroplan members over on Flyertalk are booking Canada-US flights at the new promo like crazy, even under the current restrictions.

I do think that Canada will open to the EU before they open to the US.

As to your question, there are people flying China>Canada>US for example every week. If they are US citizens, they can of course not be banned from entering the US. The airline does check but there is a lot of discussion of when (ie first point of departure? transfer point?) and how well they are applying any limits. Timatic is not always updated as the restrictions have changed so much, so that adds an extra element. From what I have heard, the bigger challenges are people trying to fly via some Asian countries ie Singapore kept changing who could transit so someone flying Australia>Asia transit?>Europe could not always find a way home.

My understanding is that in the example above, there are more travellers from the US who are denied entry by CBSA and returned to the US than from Asia, Europe, etc.

 

[ronandannette]

There have been people flying throughout the last several months including to/from Canada daily, including flights to/from the US, China, and Europe. There are many people who are able to fly, and who are flying, globally. You may not have personal experience of this but let me assure you that there are flights and people every day crossing borders, including into Canada from around the globe.

And Canadians can and have been able to fly from Canada all along, so long as they meet entry requirements of their destination country. Feel free to read other more factual travel fora such as Flyertalk.

Americans are also in some cases still able to travel to the EU, currently, even if they do not meet the current restrictions. Germany has a very strong medical tourism sector, and hospitals and cancer centres often have travel departments to facilitate visas and travel arrangements. An American poster on Flyertalk left about 10 days ago from California, had his treatment in Germany, and is now back at home.

Yes - there are a number of categories of travellers that qualify for waivers but it is inaccurate to imply movement into Canada is unrestricted or that there is some special arrangement between Germany and Canada.
https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...s-covid19/travel-restrictions-exemptions.html

 

[bavaria]

Nowhere did I imply that. I am very careful to post facts rather than assumptions. LH has been flying YYZ, YUL, and YYC flights for several weeks now. Clearly there is enough demand for those flights as they update their schedules bi-weekly and only add back destinations when they see search data warrants it. Again, there are people flying every day globally.

However I would remind anyone reading here that this site has been always quite notorious for misleading or incorrect travel information, and to refer to official government information, or more accurate sites populated by more experienced travellers. The amount of misinformation I've read here in the few times I've been reading recently reinforces that. (Then again, I also know that some posters on fora like to post misinformation for some bizarre motivation)

 

[GTBB]

Oh please, they just mad cause we want them to start paying for what they agreed to pay, next time Germany starts kicking your ***, dont come crying to us

Seriously, I hope this was a joke

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

I got covid in the UK When I got back to the US I was sick for several weeks , it was disheartening to see the nightmare situation at UK beaches the other day .. they are making the same mistakes the US has made .

I saw those pictures over the weekend! I would hope more would learn from our missteps/mistakes and do better. Apparently, some are going to just follow right along. It's really sad.

 

[Imzadi]

The most telling graphic I've seen is the one that displays the "curves" between March and June of the US and the EU. Both were high in April. The US continued to go up. The EU down. Democracies can cope, but require national leadership. We could look like Europe right now if we had done what Europe did.

Three states DID bend the curve down while the other 47 states went up. CT is included in the lower blue line. We proved it can be done here when one follows the science and data and studies what was successful in the other countries around the world.

Source: COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University

 

[Imzadi]

Seriously, I hope this was a joke

Yes, he usually jokes like that.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Three states DID bend the curve down while the other 47 states went up. CT is included in the lower blue line. We proved it can be done here when one follows the science and data and studies what was successful in the other countries around the world.

Source: COVID-19 Data Repository by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University

I really hope these 3 states do well with the next steps in reopening. But please keep in mind many states were doing ok, even well until stage 3 (or equivalent to indoor dining, bars, gyms, etc) reopenings. Up until this last set of reopenings, CA actually managed to keep the numbers relatively flat and it quickly got out of hand when those things opened. I really, really have my fingers crossed that NY/NJ/CT will get through it better, and learned from our mistakes (like waiting to mandate masks statewide), but until those things are actually open, it's too early to stay that these 3 states are out of the woods. That isn't to discount the work that it took to get the current downward trend though.

 

[Imzadi]

I really hope these 3 states do well with the next steps in reopening. But please keep in mind many states were doing ok, even well until stage 3 (or equivalent to indoor dining, bars, gyms, etc) reopenings. Up until this last set of reopenings, CA actually managed to keep the numbers relatively flat and it quickly got out of hand when those things opened. I really, really have my fingers crossed that NY/NJ/CT will get through it better, and learned from our mistakes (like waiting to mandate masks statewide), but until those things are actually open, it's too early to stay that these 3 states are out of the woods. That isn't to discount the work that it took to get the current downward trend though.

Yes, I'm kind of nervous that we could quickly lose all the gains we've made. Phase 3 is set to start in NYC in another week. (We've had mandatory masks for a couple months now. But, epopel won't be wearing masks in restaurants or bars as they eat & drink. ) I kind of hope that part of reopening will be put off for a couple weeks until the rest of the country stabilizes a bit. If people here get complacent, careless or lazy, that could spike us in no time flat. And NYC being such a tourist destination, other people could decide to come here, since it's "safer," yet bring the virus with them.

Thanks for your well wishes. I wondered what happened in CA. You guys had been doing so great. So Phase 3 is the tricky phase for everyone.

 

[mousefan73]

Canadian borders are still closed to all non-essential traffic. We are not allowing entry to anybody (by air, land or sea) other than Canadian citizens, unless they individually fall into a few specific "waiver" categories. Canadians can leave and return home but must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. There is no special arrangement with Germany.
https://globalnews.ca/news/7092500/coronavirus-canada-border-closure/

But there have been

https://www.canada.ca/en/immigratio...ovid19/visitors-foreign-workers-students.html
Some people don't realise, or forget, that we live in a global society. Every day there are people with dual (or more) citizenship, permanent residents, essential workers, low wage foreign workers, returning travellers who only now are coming 'home', and international students travelling globally, including to and from Canada. The China-Canada flights have been very busy transporting international students for instance, along with people moving around for other purposes. Remember that Trudeau never stopped those flights earlier in the year. Some carriers never stopped Canada-US flights during the entire period, and are having to increase capacity. Aeroplan members over on Flyertalk are booking Canada-US flights at the new promo like crazy, even under the current restrictions.

I do think that Canada will open to the EU before they open to the US.

As to your question, there are people flying China>Canada>US for example every week. If they are US citizens, they can of course not be banned from entering the US. The airline does check but there is a lot of discussion of when (ie first point of departure? transfer point?) and how well they are applying any limits. Timatic is not always updated as the restrictions have changed so much, so that adds an extra element. From what I have heard, the bigger challenges are people trying to fly via some Asian countries ie Singapore kept changing who could transit so someone flying Australia>Asia transit?>Europe could not always find a way home.

My understanding is that in the example above, there are more travellers from the US who are denied entry by CBSA and returned to the US than from Asia, Europe, etc.

Not sure if I am quoting the correct post but FYI I I work for an airline. Our responsibility is to check only if the passport used to enter a country is valid for the country of final flight destination and if connecting airport restrictions or issues. Past travel history or if a second passport is owned is not our biz to check. Immigration can do all they care. And as you stated transatlantic travel and other global travel never stopped. Definition of “essential” travel meant many things. Also there are millions of dual nationals out there traveling back and forth to their “homes”. Even the US travel ban left tons open. Alien spouses , children or parent is an exception.

edit: and many places are impossible to check last travel history. It’s not like there’s a global immigration database. And not all countries have a in passport stamp/ visa.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

Yes, I'm kind of nervous that we could quickly lose all the gains we've made. Phase 3 is set to start in NYC in another week. (We've had mandatory masks for a couple months now. But, epopel won't be wearing masks in restaurants or bars as they eat & drink. ) I kind of hope that part of reopening will be put off for a couple weeks until the rest of the country stabilizes a bit. If people here get complacent, careless or lazy, that could spike us in no time flat. And NYC being such a tourist destination, other people could decide to come here, since it's "safer," yet bring the virus with them.

Thanks for your well wishes. I wondered what happened in CA. You guys had been doing so great. So Phase 3 is the tricky phase for everyone.

I do think you're in a good place having been able to watch all the mistakes made by other states. Hopefully take it at a slower pace and definitely having the mask mandate already in place! I'm hoping having seen what your community has already been through will make people there take it seriously, but my fear is as I continue to see NYers (not all, but many) tout how well they've done, they won't take going forward as seriously; like there will a belief the hard work has already been done. I do think that's part of the problem in CA - we did so well, people didn't take it as seriously as they should have as we started reopening. Also the disjointed approach we had, didn't help. Our Gov did well in the bigger picture and especially when we realize how bad it could have been, but the Bay Area made a pact, closed earlier than the state and reacted much differently than Southern California and I think it reflects in our numbers, even as they rise state wide. I just hope we're not too late now to real it back in.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Yes, he usually jokes like that.

Extremely tasteless joke.

 

[bavaria]

But there have been

Not sure if I am quoting the correct post but FYI I I work for an airline. Our responsibility is to check only if the passport used to enter a country is valid for the country of final flight destination and if connecting airport restrictions or issues. Past travel history or if a second passport is owned is not our biz to check. Immigration can do all they care. And as you stated transatlantic travel and other global travel never stopped. Definition of “essential” travel meant many things. Also there are millions of dual nationals out there traveling back and forth to their “homes”. Even the US travel ban left tons open. Alien spouses , children or parent is an exception.

edit: and many places are impossible to check last travel history. It’s not like there’s a global immigration database. And not all countries have a in passport stamp/ visa.

And now we have also an added layer to consider with the pandemic which goes beyond entry requirements, such as the situations below:

- a traveller currently stuck in Australia, who had a ticket (yours, I believe) back to Germany. However since Australia has almost completely shut down, there are very few flights operating on limited routes. The only Star Alliance options are via SIN, but Singapore changes the rules regarding transfer flights quite a bit. The only flight to SIN is actually on Scoot, the low cost carrier of SQ, so it is not clear if he can transfer without having to reclaim luggage. Some days SIN rules say no transfer permitted, some days only if the flights are operated by SQ. So nobody seems to knows if he can fly. Normally another Star Alliance option would be Australia>YVR>Germany (and the LH flight is operating as of this week to/from YVR) but there is no Australia> Vancouver flight (usually 3-4/day)

- people of South Asian descent who are stuck in India, etc since India has extended the ban on international flights. Many could not get to the airports in time to take repatriation flights, and there are no current options to come back home to their country of residence, even if they have the correct documentation

- Passengers who fly from the US to Canada and are allowed to board in the US (or connect from another country via the US) as they have the proper documentation to enter Canada. However, on arrival they are deemed inadmissable because they do not have a valid accepted quarantine plan. Normally being deemed inadmissable means that CBSA works with the airline to return them on the next flight, but with very limited schedules, that may mean returning to the US on the next day with an overnight stay airside in holding. This is occurring daily.

It's reassuring for people to think that the 'world shut down' and that we all stayed home and baked bread. But the reality is far darker. Many of us had to make snap decisions where to go, when this was expected to be a two to three week pause. Families are separated, people cannot get back to work and lost employment, people cannot get to their medical care, people have paid out of pocket to try and find a way 'home' even though they had valid airline tickets, etc etc. In my circle I know so many of us who are in the 'wrong' place, or riding this out with almost strangers, or with family unintentionally, or separated by tens of thousands of kilometres from partners.

There will be another wave soon of people trying to get back to the 'right' place. Then there will be the international students who flew home in March, flying back again as they have been paying rent for empty flats all this time and even with remote learning still need to be back for school.

The vast majority of us who have been flying in the last few months have not been doing so for 'pleasure' by any means. We are just trying to find a way to endure this as best as possible until we can return to a more 'normal' life.