How do I get an alert when the UK-to-US travel ban is lifted?

September 11, 2021 2:12 PM

What's the easiest way to get a phone notification or email when the Presidential Proclamation prohibiting travel from the UK to the US is lifted?

There is currently a Presidential Proclamation in effect barring people who have been in the UK (among other places) in the last 14 days from entering the USA.

There are exceptions to the restrictions, but my non-married partner is not among the exceptions. We have been planning to travel to the US in December. There have been rumours of the ban being lifted sometime in the autumn. If the ban is lifted, I want to know ASAP so I can make travel arrangements.

My current system isn't working. Every so often I google to see if there is any news, my search terms are bad so I keep getting results about USA-to-UK travel mixed in, I hit a lot of paywalled articles, I'm bad at remembering to do it on a regular basis, and when I do, I start getting emotional from dwelling on it. Instead, I want the news to come to me.

There must be a lot of people who need this news too. What's the best way to get notified about this (and only this) topic as soon as there is confirmed news about it?

posted by Glier's Goetta to Travel & Transportation around United States (7 answers total)

Best answer: You could follow this twitter account (consular section, US Embassy in London).
posted by kickingtheground at 2:22 PM on September 11, 2021 [1 favorite]

Set up a Google Alert? It won't be ASAP instantaneous but it will be usually within 24 hours. It's basically like a daily news summary email based on whatever you tell it.
posted by glonous keming at 3:08 PM on September 11, 2021

Response by poster: That Twitter account is perfect, Kickingtheground! I hadn't considered Twitter because I assumed that it would be full of irrelevant tweets, but they tweet infrequently enough that it won't be a problem. I've set up notifications for that account. Thanks!
posted by Glier's Goetta at 3:36 PM on September 11, 2021

Just be aware that at present the USA doesn't accept the Astra-Zeneca vaccine, so if that's the one you've had, it might be an additional layer of difficulty in travelling to the States.
posted by essexjan at 11:25 PM on September 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Best answer: You can also get email alerts from the UK government’s website (available for all countries too). On gmail they will default to the promotions tab so make sure you move one to primary and tell gmail to always deliver it there to get a notification.
posted by ellieBOA at 12:03 AM on September 12, 2021

Best answer: Skyscanner's Covid restrictions map allows you to set up email alerts when travel restrictions between two countries change.
posted by dudekiller at 2:39 AM on September 12, 2021 [1 favorite]

Just be aware that at present the USA doesn't accept the Astra-Zeneca vaccine

I don't mean to be that guy, but the USA doesn't accept the vaccine because the company hasn't submitted its data package to the FDA. It's not like the American regulators have rejected this vaccine, they just haven't been asked by the company to review it (yet, and for good reason, but that's changing and it'll probably be resolved before December).

I work in this space and there are quite a lot of companies that are taking this same approach with various vaccine and treatment candidates. Once the push for getting the first few vaccines approved via EUAs happened, everyone stopped aiming for that and went back to the traditional drug approval pathway(s).
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 5:56 AM on September 12, 2021 [1 favorite]