Traveling post-COVID

Summer is nearly upon us and we leave in 2 weeks for a 3-month trip to Europe. We have been looking forward to spending time with our family in Germany and yet it feels so strange to travel internationally again. 

A few days after updating our travel documents at the German consulate in Los Angeles recently, where we were fully masked up, my husband tested positive for COVID. What a disappointment after 2 years of the pandemic where we've been so careful, adhering to all of the social distancing efforts, vaccines, boosters, you name it. 
The virus got my daughter next, and I,  being the remaining caretaker for the family, succumbed a week later. Now we are all quarantined and hopeful that we will receive our negative PCR tests in time to fly. We are thankful that our symptoms have been very mild and that our elderly parents are far away from us while we recover.

Trying to understand the ever-changing COVID travel rules which vary by country and airline has been nothing short of exhausting. Is it too much to ask that there is a global health QR code for each person which lists vaccine status, etc. The EU has a Digital COVID Certificate, which many non-EU countries have joined, but not the US. No, because the US likes to create its own standards and force others to follow them. That hasn't worked out very well in the tech sector, nor the health sector. And, since we can't manage coming to an agreement on a national COVID standard, it's no surprise that we haven't joined a multi-country initiative.

I realize we are incredibly fortunate to have caught COVID while still in our home, rather than in a foreign country where we might be subjected to undesirable quarantine conditions. Plus, since I expect to be in 7-8 counties this summer, the last thing I need is to catch COVID on a plane (or train). So here's to a quick recovery and the hopes for herd immunity.