I am struggling with the idea of getting PCR for the upcoming trip to Nepal, please help me figure out how to time and get PCR for free or cheap as I plan for my trip to Nepal in coming few weeks.
I saw the following article online and confused me even more. Any thoughts ? Tell me what you guys are doing about PCR tests ? I have heard that they don't care about vaccines for now in International airports such as in Nepal, is it true ?
Playing Catch-22 with International Travel dictums
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Exasperated! That’s how you must be feeling right now about the uncertainty of your planned trip for international travel.
Emerging Covid-19 test requirements for travel to all sorts of places are sowing doubt and confusion at a minimum for would-be travelers; or they are just downright impossible to achieve in some cases, giving the most stringent mandates a distinct Catch-22 quality. Specific to some people, new Covid-10 testing directives in few countries threaten a planned trip scheduled in coming days or weeks.
Tourism is vitally important to many international destinations, not only for their economy but also for the people who go there for fun. Naturally many countries want to reopen its borders to international tourists asap and many people are longing for a trip of a lifetime after being bored for more than a year now
With so much travel in demand, You probably thought that many country's government would have developed a well-coordinated set of requirements to make it easy for international visitors to comply when the country reopen. Instead, most governments muddled things entirely with directives to arriving passengers that are impossible to achieve: some of them are
1. Produce a negative Covid-19 PCR (polymerase chain reaction) certificate not more than 72 hours old; and
2. Show proof of travel insurance that covers cover the cost of Covid-19 tests and quarantine costs.
First, the worldwide insurance industry does not currently issue policies covering mandated government testing requirements and quarantine costs for a known event. Perhaps they will, but my sources speculate the cost for such a policy would soar above the garden variety travel insurance currently costing $25-80. For the moment, though, there is no insurance at any cost that meets the requirement, and so the order is a Catch-22.
With regard to the PCR Covid test, you might have found several places in your town that offer the test, many without a doctor’s referral, with prices ranging from nearly free using your private health insurance to as much as $300 when all fees are totaled. It’s hard to figure out what all the costs are.
But cost wasn’t the kicker; it’s the time required to get results.
PCR tests are much more accurate than the many “quick” tests available because they use specialized lab equipment that takes time. Every place you might have queried would have given you the same inflexible answer to get back results: 2-3 days.
Many host country's requirement to present a negative PCR Covid-19 test result not older than 72 hours makes it impossible to comply because the 3-day window will close due to the lag time between testing and receiving test results.
Even if PCR test results came in just two days, many of you won't get to that place within 72 hours if the place is far away and needs connecting flight, which makes this requirement, too, a Catch-22.
Your trip planned for coming days or weeks in 2021 is still off by sometime, so maybe the country you are going to will untangle the mess they’ve made. Right now, though, several of my friends have postponed all international trips because they feel that they can meet the fiats when he returns home.
So will you cancel your trip…? Way too early. May be you want to wait and see just how they straighten out things.
Meantime, I am sure Joseph Heller is laughing heartily somewhere in the Great Beyond watching the creation of ever more Catch-22 situations that plague us (pun intended).
