The US will lift travel bans imposed last month on eight African countries as it sought to slow the spread of the new Omicron variant of Covid-19.
Foreign nationals travelling to the US from those countries will be allowed to board flights to America from midnight on December 31, a senior administration official said.
Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi have all faced restrictions as part of the ban, which was recommended by Anthony Fauci, Biden’s chief medical officer, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
A senior administration official said the CDC had recommended lifting the restrictions because the new variant was already widespread in the US and globally.
“According to our health and medical experts at the CDC, the value of country-based international travel restrictions is greatest early in an outbreak, before the virus or variant has been widely disseminated,” the official said. “This value declines as domestic transmission starts to contribute a larger proportion of case burden.”
Health officials also said vaccines were effective against preventing severe disease, and that progress had been made by medical experts trying to understand the new Omicron variant.
President Joe Biden said earlier this week that he was considering lifting the ban. “Remember why I said we put the travel ban on — it was to see how much time we had before it hit here so we could begin to decide what we needed by looking at what was happening in other countries,” Biden said. “And we’re past that now”.
The CDC said on Monday that Omicron now accounts for about 73 per cent of US Covid-19 cases, up from just 13 per cent a week ago.
The spike in cases comes as the US struggles with a shortage of Covid-19 tests in the US. Earlier this week, Biden announced his administration would purchase 500m rapid at-home tests to send to households starting in January as it looks to slow the rise in cases.
The US earlier this month tightened rules for international travellers, extending the requirement to wear masks on planes and at airports and requiring a negative Covid-19 test within one day of travel for entry to the US.
Previously, vaccinated international air travellers could present a negative test result obtained within three days of their day of departure.
US to lift Covid-related travel bans on eight African countries
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