11 US Airports To Offer Rapid COVID-19 Tests

If you want to know immediately whether you are negative for COVID-19 and therefore can travel, 11 U.S. airports will be able to tell you.

But it will cost you.

In a story published by Travel Weekly, Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Accula rapid Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) test will be available at almost a dozen airports by May 1.

The onset of rapid PCR tests, a molecular test that is more accurate than the long-standing rapid antigen tests, has the potential to ease the way for travel to Hawaii and a variety of foreign countries that do not accept antigen test results.

Results from traditional PCR tests take 24 to 72 hours to come back.

It’s not new. Airports in Pittsburgh and Grand Rapids, Mich., have already been offering the rapid test.

But it is pricey.

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Accula test will cost $225 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and $250 at other locations.

Travel Weekly noted that PCR tests offering results in less than an hour are already available at the Tom Bradley International Terminal at Los Angeles International Airport for $199.

The airport wellness company XpresSpa deployed the rapid Accula PCR test from Thermo Fisher Scientific at New York JFK and Houston Bush this month. In addition, two XpresCheck locations each in Boston and Newark airports as well as XpresCheck locations in Denver, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, San Francisco and Seattle and at Washington Dulles and Washington Reagan will offer rapid PCR tests by May 1.