COVID-19 test requirement for international travel officially ends

Travelers at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the busiest airport in the world, now have one less thing to worry about when travelling internationally.

Earlier this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that the U.S. requirement that travelers test negative for COVID-19 within a day before boarding a flight to the United States would be coming to an end.

The mandate officially ended at 12:01 a.m. on Sunday.

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The CDC said it will continue to monitor the state of the pandemic and will reassess the need for a testing requirement if the situation changes.

Roger Dow, president of the U.S. Travel Association, called lifting the testing rule “another huge step forward for the recovery of inbound air travel and the return of international travel to the United States.”

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The mandate went into effect in January 2021 and is one of the last remaining travel restrictions.

U.S. airlines estimate that dropping the test requirement will mean 4.3 million more passengers in one year.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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