The United States will allow fully vaccinated individuals from 33 countries, including India, China, and Brazil, beginning in November under a new international travel system, the White House announced on September 20. Former President Donald Trump imposed stringent pandemic-related restrictions in early 2020 to curb the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.
During a virtual news conference, White House Covid-19 Response Coordinator Jeff Zients said, “Today we are announcing a new international air travel system. This new system includes strict protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19 from passengers flying into the US, protecting Americans and making international air travel safer.”
He added that with science and public health as its guide, the US had developed a new international air travel system that would ensure Americans’ safety and international air travellers.
Though Jeff Zients did not give a precise start date, he said that with the resumption of international travel operations in the US in early November, foreign nationals will have to be fully inoculated and must present proof of vaccination prior to boarding a US-bound flight.
The US will admit fully vaccinated air travellers from the 26 Schengen countries in Europe, including Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and Greece, and Ireland, Britain, Ireland, China, South Africa, Iran, Brazil and India.
“Foreign nationals will be required to be vaccinated, to prove they are vaccinated, and then to go to the testing and contract tracing regimes, said Zients, adding, “for fully vaccinated travellers, it is not required to be a quarantine going forward.”
He stated that around six billion Covid-19 vaccine doses had been administered worldwide, adding that the US is leading the effort to get even more shots and arms across the world.
“We know vaccines are affected including against the Delta variant, and vaccines are the best line of defence against Covid,” he was quoted as saying by AFP.
As the deadly virus has already killed more than 675000 US citizens, the US issued a separate notice and extended its pandemic-related restrictions at land borders with Canada and Mexico that prohibit non-essential travel like tourism until October 21. It has not been clarified if it would apply the new vaccine rules to these land border crossings.
