The day Korey Mudd tested positive for COVID they were supposed to meet up with friends from Michigan they had unexpectedly run into on their trip

Korey Mudd wasn't fazed by the cleaning crew outside his Mexico hotel room when he and his wife returned from the pool.

"There was someone wiping down the door and the handles and stuff,'' he said. "They asked me if it was my room, and I said, yes.''

The 30-year-old control room operator didn't grow concerned until a hotel manager and other officials pulled up in a golf cart. 

They delivered bad news: Mudd's COVID-19 test, taken that morning at the hotel so he could board his flight home to Michigan under new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rules for international flights to the United States, was positive.

How soon could he pack up and move to another room for mandatory isolation?
An hour later, Mudd was whisked to a new room. His wife, who had tested negative, was given the choice of staying in their casita at El Dorado Casitas Royale or moving into a room next door to his in the quarantine wing. She picked the latter.

It was the fifth day of their weeklong honeymoon in Riviera Maya outside Cancun.

Travel to Mexico and other international destinations open to Americans during the coronavirus pandemic took on additional risk when the new CDC guidelines went into effect Jan. 26.  
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Do you need a COVID test to fly?
Travelers don't need a COVID test to fly to Mexico, but they can't board a flight back to the United States from the country or any international destination without showing a negative test taken no more than three days before departure or proof of recovery from COVID.

Test positive, and you can't fly home until you are cleared by a doctor or provide proof of a negative test. Hotel and airline interpretations of the CDC rules vary, but travelers who've been stuck say they were told between 10 and 14 days in isolation.

When the requirement was announced on Jan. 12, travelers rushed to cancel plans or shift their vacation plans to U.S. vacation spots that don't require COVID tests. But the bookings rebounded as some hotels announced free testing and a free quarantine stay if they tested positive and vaccination rates have increased. (A vaccination does not currently exempt travelers from the requirement.)

Mudd and plenty of other travelers weighed the risks and packed their bags for Mexico. The new rules went into effect four days before the couple's flight from Michigan to Cancun. They were married in June and had already delayed their honeymoon due to the pandemic.

"Ultimately, we had pushed it off so many times already, we decided we were going to go ahead and go for it,'' he said. 

They wish they hadn't. The positive test stranded him in Mexico for nine nights longer than planned.

"It would have been better just to stay home, for sure, unfortunately.''
How many vacationers are testing positive for COVID-19 and getting stuck?
Mexico tourism and hotel officials say the rate of positive tests among travelers since the new testing requirement went into effect is minimal. 

The Grand at Moon Palace, a luxury all-inclusive resort in Cancun, has had no more than 10 cases, according to Cesar Fallardi, director of operations. Together with sister Palace Resorts, the rate is 0.4% he said.

"It's nothing, honestly, nothing,'' he said.

In Los Cabos, another popular beach destination in Mexico, Pueblo Bonito's five resorts have had 23 positive results out of 8,196 tests, according to marketing director Mary Van Den Heuvel.
For a recent reporting trip to Cancun, I tested negative at my all-inclusive resort and boarded my flight with no problems. (I also took a test a couple days before the trip as a precaution.)

Still, the topic of stranded travelers came up during a U.S. House aviation subcommittee meeting on March 2.

Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky recounted the story of an unnamed constituent who went to Cabo San Lucas and tested positive. She was asymptomatic and took two more tests to be sure the initial result was correct. The family was told to stop testing and wait for 14 days, when they would be eligible to get a doctor's note to fly home if they had no COVID symptoms.

"But they couldn't get a doctor in Mexico to sign off on that,'' Massie said. 

The family ended up flying to Tijuana, Mexico, walking across the border to San Diego and flying back to Kentucky from there, he said, repeating a story he had shared on Twitter in February.
They zip lined and swam in caves in an adventure park and hung out at their all-inclusive resort, El Dorado Casitas Royale by Karisma.

The day Korey Mudd tested positive for COVID they were supposed to meet up with friends from Michigan they had unexpectedly run into on their trip.

His first thought on hearing the results: "That can't be right because I felt fine, no symptoms. We had been being, I thought, pretty careful.''

They wore masks and religiously used hand sanitizer, he said.

Mexico woes:Mexico deals with 'hundreds' of maskless tourists, closes Chichen Itza ruin site

Mudd was tested again when he got to his new room, a standard hotel room with a balcony but no private pool like the casita they booked. The second test was a PCR test, which is considered more accurate than the rapid test he took earlier in the day for free at the hotel.

The results took a couple days, but the outcome was the same: COVID positive. 

His reaction to the honeymoon vacation mishap: "I can't believe this is happening.'' 

The hotel initially told him he had to stay until he tested negative, which freaked Mudd out since people who get the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 can test positive long after they've recovered from the virus.

"We had been on the CDC website, and we knew that wasn’t what our government was asking,'' he said.

The CDC's policy, revised in December, is that people who have tested positive but have no symptoms can be around others after 10 days have passed since their positive viral test for COVID-19, spokeswoman Caitlin Shockey said.
The El Dorado, which covers the cost of the extended stay for travelers stranded by COVID, eventually settled on 10 days after his first test if he had no symptoms.

Mudd also called the human resources department for his employer and was happy to find out COVID-related absences were covered.

"That was actually one of my biggest worries, was work,'' he said.

Alisha Mudd wanted to stay with her new husband, even if the only way they could see each other on their balconies was with a makeup mirror wedged high into an opening on the concrete wall separating their balconies.

But they didn't want to risk her testing positive and getting stuck when it was his time to leave, so she flew home as scheduled. (Passengers must show proof of a negative test taken no more than three days before their return flight to the United States, meaning her original test would no longer be valid.)

The CDC's order on testing for international flights does not preclude spouses and other people who were exposed to a COVID-19 case but tested negative from boarding a flight back to the United States, Shockey said.  

In Mexico, Mudd passed the time in his room browsing the internet on his phone (he didn't bring a laptop on his honeymoon) and watching Discovery Channel on the in-room TV.  For food, he ordered hamburgers and other room-service items – its complimentary at all-inclusive resorts and mandatory during isolation. Pushups and squats sufficed for daily exercise.

Alcohol, also complimentary at all-inclusive resorts, was not allowed, something the hotel attributed to doctor's orders, he said. Alisha Mudd, who was allowed to leave the quarantine wing, brought him back a Dos Equis beer when she was still in Mexico because a manager had said she could bring him drinks as long as she didn't enter his room.

Hotel security found out and scolded her.

"They called her out of her room to tell her,'' Mudd said.

Mudd finally left Mexico for Michigan on Feb. 7, nine days later than planned, but not before a major scare at Cancun International Airport. He showed American Airlines agents a doctor's note saying he had recovered from COVID recently and received a boarding pass.

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