Biden to reinstate Covid travel restrictions Trump rescinded, impose new ban on South Africa

President Joe Biden options to indication constraints Monday on travel to the United States to mitigate Covid-19 transmission, two White Residence officials verified Sunday.

The ban would prevent most non-U.S. citizens from entry if they have not too long ago been in South Africa, wherever a new strain of Covid-19 has been discovered. The virus has killed additional than 418,000 folks and contaminated upward of 25 million across the U.S., in accordance to an NBC News tracker.

Biden is also expected to reinstate broader limitations that were in effect significantly of the previous year but were rescinded by President Donald Trump times ahead of his term finished. The restrictions would influence non-U.S. citizens traveling from the United Kingdom, Ireland and substantially of Europe in what is recognised as the Schengen nations, which share a typical visa system. Tourists from Brazil would also be afflicted.

Reuters was initial to report the news.

Ahead of Biden took business, incoming White Household push secretary Jen Psaki in a tweet criticized Trump’s final decision to rescind the bans he had executed.

“With the pandemic worsening, and extra contagious variants emerging all-around the entire world, this is not the time to be lifting limits on international travel,” she said.

The limits are established to be lifted Tuesday.

The Facilities for Sickness Manage and Prevention reported Sunday that, commencing Tuesday, it will no for a longer period consider exceptions to its necessity that intercontinental vacationers existing adverse coronavirus tests. Airlines had requested the agency to relax the rule for some international locations with constrained tests capability.

“As variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus continue to arise in nations all-around the world, there is rising proof of improved transmissibility of some of these variants, as effectively as unfamiliar well being and vaccine implications,” a CDC spokesman mentioned in a assertion. “Testing in advance of and immediately after vacation is a crucial layer to gradual the introduction and spread of COVID-19 and rising variants.”