Is it safe to travel if I’m vaccinated and recovered from Covid

Millions of people are now vaccinated, boosted and newly recovered from Covid-19 infections caused by the omicron variant.

They have what some outside the medical community have labeled “super immunity.” And many are ready to see the world again.

Though the term carries an air of invincibility, medical experts disagree about the level and length of protection it confers.

CNBC Travel asked four leading medical authorities to weigh in.

Risks of severe illness for vaccinated and recovered people are “low and … unlikely to get lower,” said Dale Fisher, group chief of medicine at Singapore’s National University Health System.

For these people, travel risks are now more about inconvenience than health, he said. Immunized travelers can still get sick during their trips, he said, or have their trips canceled upon testing positive for a pre-flight test.

Fisher said traveling isn’t the Covid risk that it once was, because of how prevalent the omicron variant is today, he said.

“There’s nothing magical about travel; you’re not more likely to get [Covid] because you travel unless you’re going from a very low endemic area to a very high endemic area,” he said. But “there’s not many low endemic areas left in the world.”

Some argue that vaccinations plus recovery provide more protection, Fisher said. However, he added, “you’re very well protected after two doses” of a vaccine, too.

“You’re at risk of getting Covid, wherever you go, for the rest of your life,” he said. “But really, for the vast majority of people, it’ll just be a very minor illness, if it’s symptomatic at all.”

People shouldn’t let their guards down just yet, said Dr. Patrice Harris, former president of the American Medical Association and CEO of the at-home medical testing company eMed.

“We are seeing hospitalizations reduced, but listen, we are still seeing 2,400 deaths per day in this country,” she said during an interview with CNBC Travel last week. “We are not at the end of this pandemic yet.”

That doesn’t mean she discourages travel — Harris said she’s planning two trips to Europe this year. But she does recommend that people rely on “tried-and-true evidence-based practices,” such as vaccines, testing, masks, ventilation and social distancing.

Harris said people who are immunocompromised, or around others who are, should exercise more caution. Even though she’s vaccinated and boosted, she’s still careful for the sake of her 87-year-old father, she said.

“This virus is very wily, and at every turn of it has fooled us,” she said.

There is always the threat of another variant emerging, plus the risk of developing so-called “long Covid,” even after mild…