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April DeMuth and her partner Warren Watson had just finished what they described as the perfect vacation in Greece when they took a coronavirus test at Athens airport. They had spent their days sipping coffee on their hotel balcony overlooking the Venetian windmills in Mykonos; driving on red sand beaches in Santorini; watching the Parthenon turn golden hues at sunset; and dinner at midnight.

Every detail of their trip went smoothly until they waited in line for their return flight to South Carolina on August 3. Mr. Watson, 51 (who was fully vaccinated with Ms. DeMuth), received an email saying he had been vaccinated. The coronavirus test was positive.

“We were in complete shock and didn’t know what to do,” Mr Watson recalls. “Then 10 minutes later we got a call from the Greek authorities saying that they will get a minibus and take us to a quarantine hotel.”

When Europe reopened its borders to Americans In June, after a 15-month ban, the highly contagious Delta coronavirus variant was not as common as it is today, and breakthrough infections were rare for fully vaccinated people. But now, stories of travelers catching the virus abroad, including those with a full vaccine, are beginning to emerge, as the Delta strain accounts for more than 90 percent of cases in Europe and the United States. Their plans were disrupted by mandatory quarantine requirements in different countries.

The Times interviewed 11 people who contracted Covid-19 during their recent European holidays and had to extend their travels to recover. Among them were adults and children aged 12 to 62 who had traveled to England, France, Italy, Spain, Greece and Cyprus.

‘We’re going to go a little crazy…’

In Athens, Ms DeMuth and Mr Watson were required to spend at least seven days in a quarantine hotel paid for and provided by the Greek government. They were not allowed to leave their rooms until the seventh day and after both tested negative for the virus.

“It was very well organized and they were extremely nice to us,” Ms DeMuth said of the first days of their quarantine. “They brought us three meals a day and everything we ordered online was delivered to our door.”

“So we’re going a little crazy,” Mr Watson added during a recent phone call from the hotel they were quarantining. “We are not allowed to leave our room and there is a huge heatwave and fires in the area but we can still stick our heads out the window.”

The couple suspects they contracted the virus in South Carolina in July before traveling to Greece. Ms. DeMuth had mild symptoms similar to a cold that passed quickly, and Mr Watson said she felt a discharge in the back of her throat on the way to the airport, but assumed it was allergy symptoms, which were very common to her at this time. year.

“We got our vaccination cards, we felt healthy, we’re in our 50s, it didn’t really occur to us that we had COVID,” said Ms. DeMuth.

Greece does not require fully vaccinated visitors to take a coronavirus test before entering the country; therefore, Mr. Watson was unaware that he probably had the virus until the end of his travels. Ms DeMuth, travel partner at Valerie Wilson Travel, a FROSCH Company, said in retrospect she would recommend getting tested before leaving as an extra precaution, due to the highly contagious nature of the Delta variant. not required by the target.

“Even if you have no symptoms and don’t feel sick, you don’t want to put other communities at risk,” he said.

And of course, there is also the risk of American travelers getting infected at their destination. Although most European countries are open to American travelers, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has added a few to their list. Level 4 or very high risk Destinations including France, Iceland and the UK due to the high infection rates in these countries.

‘Everything happened so quickly…’

When Skylor Bee-Latty, a 28-year-old search engine optimization executive, flew from Washington DC to London in early June to visit her boyfriend Alex Camp, she had to take four coronavirus tests within 10 days and quarantine for five days. A few days before I was free to travel in Britain. Even then, the vaccinated couple proceeded cautiously, choosing an isolated location in Wales for their first vacation together in a year.

Days before their trip, they received a notification from a government tracking app asking them to self-isolate for 10 days due to possible exposure to the virus. They cut their journey short and returned to the city of Manchester, where Mr. Camp lived.

“We were really surprised when we got the notification because we were already self-isolating in a cabin and only really came into contact with a few people when we went to a bar or restaurant,” he said.

After 10 days of isolation at home and multiple negative virus tests, the two were once again free to travel, but this time they decided to stay in Manchester and enjoy the Euro 2020 championship football matches in the bars. Three weeks later, around July 10, when the Delta variant began to roll out in England, Ms. Bee-Latty and Mr. Camp began to feel good.

“The first few days I was nauseous but then one day I woke up and my head was full, I had a hard time opening my eyes and then my boyfriend’s throat started tickling and I had aches and pains in my body,” he said. “Everything escalated pretty quickly and before we knew it we were positive and We’re back in isolation.”

By August, Ms. Bee-Latty had spent more than four weeks of her trip in quarantine, and it took a long time for her to stop feeling so lethargic and foggy even after she had recovered.

“I’m still not feeling well, so I take it every day,” she said. “I was planning to go to Italy and see my family, but right now I’m just watching how the numbers are going because even though I’m traveling and have recently recovered from Covid, I still want to be smart about it.”

“My sister has been infected with Covid three times, so there is always a chance of getting it again,” he added.

Many travelers who booked a summer vacation to Europe in June said they didn’t think about the consequences of what would happen if they got sick while on vacation, the financial setbacks of having to pay for additional accommodation, meals, flight change fees, and getting extra money. take time off from work.

Most European countries do not cover quarantine stays, which can add between seven and 21 extra days to a trip, depending on a country’s quarantine authority. Last month, 42-year-old personal trainer Louise Little spent $1,800 to extend her Airbnb in Spain after testing positive for the virus the day before she was scheduled to fly home from Barcelona to New York.

“When I saw the result, I wanted to die,” said Mrs Little, who was completely vaccinated. “I had no symptoms and just thought of all the people I came in contact with in all the places I was during my 10-day vacation. I feel really awful.”

When Ms. Little took out travel insurance for her trip, she had assumed it would cover all of the coronavirus costs, but when she requested an extension of her stay, she was denied on the grounds that only medical treatment and hospitalizations were covered.

“To be honest, I didn’t think about reading the small print at the time because they were fully vaccinated and I didn’t think I would get the virus,” he said. “I think many young, healthy and vaccinated people like me felt invincible at the beginning of summer, but now with Delta that has changed. Traveling has again become quite risky.”

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