Bostonians Who Recently Traveled To Provincetown No Longer Required To Test For COVID, Self-Isolate

The city of Boston is no longer asking residents who will travel or recently returned from Provincetown to get tested for COVID-19 or self-isolate.

The Boston Public Health Commission made the announcement on Friday and said the relaxing of its earlier guidance went into effect on Aug. 5. The updated guidance applies to anyone who visited the popular vacation destination after July 17, as the commission says "it enhanced its definition of cases connected to this cluster to include the following specific dates of travel: July 3, 2021-July 17, 2021."

"BPHC would like to remind residents that close, sustained contact with other people indoors increases your risk of exposure to COVID," the commission said in a statement. "While those vaccinated are strongly protected from serious illness or hospitalization, it is still possible to get COVID and spread it to others."

According to the commission, 140 Boston cases have been traced back to the Provincetown outbreak in the first half of July. The majority of those people had been fully vaccinated and only one person was hospitalized, but has since been released.

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Department of Public Health published data from their investigation into the COVID outbreak in Provincetown. The data found the delta variant caused the vast majority of cases and three quarters were in people who were fully vaccinated.

This investigation prompted the CDC to change masking guidelines, recommending that even vaccinated people should wear masks and distance indoors in certain scenarios.

In the updated guidelines for Bostonians announced Friday, the commission reminded residents that testing — and vaccines — are still available.

"BPHC is asking everyone to remember to get tested and to self-isolate if any symptoms of COVID-19 infection develop, even if those symptoms are mild," the commission said.