Chicago recommends quarantine for unvaccinated travelers with negative test

Chicago issued a new recommendation on Tuesday that unvaccinated travelers get tested for coronavirus twice and quarantine for 10 days upon arrival, as the highly infectious delta variant continues to spread nationwide.

The Illinois city made the recommendation in a travel advisory, stating that unvaccinated travelers should get tested one to five days before traveling and three to five days after traveling, and quarantine for a full 7 days after arrival even if the tests come back negative.

Unvaccinated travelers who opt not to get tested are encouraged to stay home and self quarantine for 10 days after completing travel.

After travel:
✅unvaccinated individuals should get tested 3-5 days after travel AND stay home and self-quarantine for a full 7 days, even if you test negative. (If you don’t get tested, stay home and self-quarantine for 10 days after travel.)

— ChiPublicHealth (@ChiPublicHealth) August 31, 2021

Before Tuesday, unvaccinated travelers were told to either quarantine for 10 days or test negative no earlier than 72 hours before arriving, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The updated travel advisory also expanded the number of states for recommended quarantine to include all states except for Vermont.

States with more than 15 daily cases per 100,000 people are under the advisory. Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, Washington, D.C., and Guam were all new additions to the list this week, according to the Tribune.

Allison Arwady, Chicago’s public health commissioner, attributed the updated travel advisory to the surge in COVID-19 cases nationwide.

“Unfortunately COVID is surging across the entire United States,” Arwady said on Tuesday, according to the Tribune.

“We’re doing much better than that here in Chicago, but nevertheless the news remains not good from a COVID perspective at the national level,” she added.

Arwady also stated that unvaccinated children should not travel Labor Day weekend since they are not inoculated and have to return to in-person learning in schools. 

“I would not recommend traveling if you’ve got unvaccinated children,” Arwady said, according to the Tribune. “I know that’s hard for people, but we’re just trying to avoid infection.”

The new precautions in Chicago come amid a surge of COVID-19 cases across the country, driven largely by the highly infectious delta variant.

The city of Chicago announced last week that all city employees will need to be fully vaccinated by Oct. 15 and continue wearing masks and social distancing. Chicago joins a list of cities requiring employees to get the vaccine amid the current spike in infection, including New York City.