President Joe Biden plans to sign restrictions on travel to the United States on Monday to ease the transfer of Covid-19, two White House officials confirmed Sunday.
The ban would prevent most non-US citizens from entering if they had recently been to South Africa, where a new strain of Covid-19 has been identified. According to an NBC News tracker, more than 418,000 people have been killed and more than 25 million people in the U.S. infected.
Biden is also expected to reinstate broader restrictions that have been in place for the past year, but which President Donald Trump recalled, days before his term ended. The limits apply to non-US citizens traveling from the United Kingdom, Ireland and much of Europe in what are known as the Schengen countries, which share a common visa process. Travelers from Brazil will also be affected.
Reuters reported the news first.
Before Biden took office, Incoming White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki in a tweet criticizing Trump’s decision to repeal the ban he imposed.
“With the worsening pandemic and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to lift restrictions on international travel,” she said.
The restrictions are expected to be lifted on Tuesday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Sunday that from Tuesday it will not consider more exceptions than the requirement for international travelers to perform negative coronavirus tests. Airline has asked the agency to relax the rule for some countries with limited testing capability.
“As variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to appear in countries around the world, there is increasing evidence of increased transmissibility of some of these variants, as well as unknown implications for health and vaccine,” a CDC spokesman said in a statement. said a statement. “Test before and after travel is a critical layer to delay the introduction and distribution of COVID-19 and emerging variants.”
Monica Alba contributed.