As the summer vacation season approaches, more people are traveling domestically.
Joshua Blake will be flying to Mexico City, Mexico this week. He is among the thousands of Arkansans who will have to get a COVID-19 test before boarding a plane.
"When I went to check on the status of my ticket through the company website, the CDC advisory was on our company’s website, but it wasn't on the airlines website,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends the following for people who are traveling that are not vaccinated:
- Get tested one to three business days before your trip.
- Wear a mask over your nose and mouth when on a plane, bus, train and other forms of public transportation.
- Get a test three to five days after you travel and stay home and self-quarantine for a full seven days even if you test negative.
Blake said he is fully vaccinated but is still required to get a COVID swab.
"I, then, found out that you have to have a test done within 72 hours of travel, otherwise you can't reenter the country,” he said.
Brittany Sanders, a pharmacist at The Pharmacy at Wellington, said they are offering rapid antigen COVID-19 tests for people who are planning to travel soon.
"We have a result pretty quickly. We are able to process it here on-site and have a result for the patient within about 20 minutes,” she said.
Recently, the pharmacy has been giving rapid tests to people who are traveling.
“We have seen several people starting to come in more regularly for travel purposes. Not all locations require it for travel, but there are still many destinations that do require a negative COVID test,” she said.
To get a rapid COVID swab at the pharmacy, the patient needs to pay $95.
Blake plans to travel more and he said that is a price he will have to continue to pay in order to comply with CDC guidelines.
“It's a lot to have to if I’m going to have to keep getting a test because, as I travel a lot, it's definitely going to add up, the cost of having to do a test every time I travel,” he said.
It is a minor inconvenience for him, but he said he is happy that the quick option is something he will not have to worry a lot about.
"I love that it's that easily available because when I found out that I needed to get a test right away, I'm just glad that I can go somewhere and get it done,” he said.
Patients can schedule to get a rapid COVID test on the Pharmacy at Wellington’s website.