When will the testing not be necessary for travelling?

[expatinspain]

So, the vaccines are being rolled out at a varying success rate, country to country. My question is if the majority of the population is vaccinated in two countries, will it still be necessary to do a test before travelling and returning, if you've already been vaccinated? There seem to be some people saying yes and others that it won't be necessary.

I'm not a scientist, but my thinking was that once the population had been vaccinated, providing it's the same case in the country you're travelling to then tests wouldn't be necessary. Otherwise are we going to be having our noses and throats scraped indefinitely to travel, even when the numbers are low or the virus is only affecting the overwhelmed majority in a mild form, due to more or less everyone being vaccinated? It certainly going to make travel very expensive an a luxury of the well off, if so. I live abroad and all the tests for three of us plus the cost of the trip would make visiting the U.K. pretty unaffordable.

Nobody knows.

And nobody knows what variants will mutate, or whether the vaccines will be effective against them.

It’ll be down to individual countries policies, but I can’t see it being soon, if I’m honest. I think citizens of each country would be annoyed at any government opening the border randomly, and risking lockdowns again.

The problem will come from other visitors to that particular country who are from another country that isn’t very far ahead with vaccinations and from a high cases country.

Testing doesn't have to be expensive or complicated though. It does seem like the UK has made it very expensive for people coming into the country to get tests - I assume to try to prevent incoming travel.

We run tests at our school (BinaxNow) connected to an app that tracks results, and it is very cheap and quick and easy.

Travellers into my US state can get a drive through test at multiple locations, get a result within 15 minutes - no charge. You can also get PCR tests with results in 24-48 hours - also free. Or you can get tested at the airport for a small charge.

Unfortunately tests for travelling where I am in Spain are expensive. They are also pretty invasive. There's only one private clinic where you can get them done and everyone comes out with their eyes steaming. They really stick it as far up your nose as possible. It's quite painful. Everyone I know who has had it done there has had the same experience 😕 I have an 11 year old with quite bad anxiety, so I wouldn't put her through it. We'll just wait to travel, as I'm assuming this can't go on forever!