{"id":4469,"date":"2022-05-11T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-11T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/?p=4469"},"modified":"2023-04-18T11:42:57","modified_gmt":"2023-04-18T17:42:57","slug":"international-flying-to-the-us-covid-testing-the-easy-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/2022\/05\/11\/international-flying-to-the-us-covid-testing-the-easy-way\/","title":{"rendered":"International Flying to the US: COVID Testing the Easy Way"},"content":{"rendered":"

As you\u2019ve no doubt heard or experienced, you need a negative antigen COVID test<\/a> taken no earlier than the calendar day before your flight to board a flight to the USA. In my recent travels I\u2019ve seen people paying $200-$400 for a rapid test at the airport, or about half that for a test at their hotel. You don\u2019t need to do that, and even better you don\u2019t need to have a technician in a sterile room in a foreign country give you a brain tickle to get your test either.<\/p>\n

There are two cheap, convenient options that I\u2019ve used, both of which require essentially swirling a q-tip around the lowest part of your nose five times on your own schedule in the comfort of your own room while a proctor watches on your phone or webcam:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. FlowFlex tests ($9.99 at CVS<\/a>, or possibly free from USPS<\/a> if you\u2019re lucky) with AZOVA proctoring<\/a> ($20, can be scheduled ahead of time in 8 minute increments)<\/li>\n
  2. eMed BinaxNOW tests<\/a> ($150 for a six pack, and it includes proctoring that can\u2019t currently be scheduled ahead of time, but waits to complete a test are minimal)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    With both of these, you\u2019ll either use a laptop or a mobile phone application to make a video call to a proctor. The proctor will walk you through performing the test while watching via your webcam, you\u2019ll wait 15 minutes for the test to complete, and then you\u2019ll either take a picture or reconnect to a proctor to read the COVID result.<\/p>\n

    When you\u2019re done, both services will email you a certified PDF of your test results suitable for getting into the US. In my experience a digital copy of the PDF is all I\u2019ve ever needed, but if you have access to a printer it can\u2019t hurt to have a physical backup I suppose, especially for airlines that haven\u2019t yet figured out how to issue a mobile boarding pass.<\/p>\n

    One final note, the eMed BinaxNOW test packaging is rather unfortunately large: It\u2019s about the size of a bulky journal. The FlowFlex packaging is much smaller though, about the size of a cell phone external battery. I typically pack two of them in my luggage before I leave the US with the extra one as a backup, though so far I haven\u2019t ever needed the second.<\/p>\n

    Good luck!<\/p>\n

    \n
    \"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

    Just because you can doesn\u2019t mean you should.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    As you\u2019ve no doubt heard or experienced, you need a negative antigen COVID test taken no earlier than the calendar day before your flight to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":2,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meta","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4469"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7036,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4469\/revisions\/7036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesearnandburn.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}