Biden not in a mood to relax travel restrictions

President Joe Biden will continue to restrict travel to the US from the UK, Ireland and 26 countries in Europe, and will extend the ban to South Africa, to slow transmission of Covid-19. The new president last week tightened mask wearing rules and ordered quarantine for people flying into the United States, as he seeks to tackle the country's worsening coronavirus crisis. Biden has said that the Covid-19 death toll would likely rise from 420,000 to half a million next month -- and that drastic action was needed."We're in a national emergency. It's time we treated it like one," he said.

The latest ban would prevent most non-US citizens from entry if they have recently been in South Africa, where a new strain of the virus has been identified. It’s unclear how long the restrictions will continue. The US is warily viewing new coronavirus strains that have originated in South Africa and Brazil, as well as one recently identified in the UK that’s more transmissible and potentially more harmful. Starting Monday, all passengers arriving in the US, including citizens, will be required to get a viral test for the coronavirus within three days of their departure, and to provide written documentation of a negative result.

More than 25 million Covid-19 cases have been recorded in the US since the pandemic began, according to the Johns Hopkins University tally on Sunday.The milestone was reached only five days after the US, the world's wealthiest and hardest-hit nation, recorded 400,000 deaths from the disease. Biden  wants 100 million people vaccinated within his first 100 days in office, and he has called for Americans to wear masks for 100 days. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an order issued on Sunday, eliminated an option for airlines or other aircraft operators with flights from countries that lack testing capacity for Covid-19 to apply for two-week waivers from the order. “With the U.S. already in surge status, the testing requirement for all air passengers will help slow the spread of the virus as we work to vaccinate the American public,” the CDC said in its order.