United States President Joe Biden will reimpose travel restrictions on most non-US citizens due to a steady rise in numbers of coronavirus case. Biden had promised that he will ramp up the COVID-19 response if elected as the President.
People with a travel history to countries like the United Kingdom, Brazil, Ireland, and much of Europe will be specifically restricted heavily for any kind of travelling, a White House official said on Monday.
Amid the discovery of a new Covid-19 variant in South Africa, Biden is likely to place a strict ban on travellers with a recent history of travel to that country. The US has already found many new, more transmissible variants which are already establishing themselves in the country, the official said.
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 on Thursday.
Donald Trump had announced in his last days in the White House that the lift on travellers from Europe and other parts of the world would be lifted and they would be free to travel in the US. However, Biden’s administration quickly turned down this move and reinstated the ban saying that it would come effect on January 26.
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 president, who was inaugurated on January 20, has said he wants 100 million people vaccinated within his first 100 days in office, and he has called for Americans to wear masks for 100 days.
