US eases travel restrictions for vaccinated foreign air travellers

WASHINGTON: The United States will reopen in November to air travellers from 33 countries including China, India, Brazil and most of Europe who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19, the White House said, easing tough pandemic-related restrictions that started early last year.

The decision, announced by White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients, marked an abrupt shift for President Joe Biden’s administration, which said last week it was not the right time to lift any restrictions amid rising COVID-19 cases.

The United States had lagged many other countries in lifting such restrictions, and allies welcomed the move. The US restrictions have barred travellers from most of the world including tens of thousands of foreign nationals with relatives or business links in the United States.

The United States will admit fully vaccinated air travellers from the 26 Schengen countries in Europe including France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Greece, as well as Britain, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil. The unprecedented US restrictions have barred non-US.citizens who were in those countries within the past 14 days.

Restrictions on non-US citizens were first imposed on air travellers from China in January 2020 by then-President Donald Trump and then extended to dozens of other countries, without any clear metrics for how and when to lift them. Zients did not give a precise start date for the new rules beyond saying “early November,” and many details of the new policy are still being decided.

The United States also extended its pandemic-related restrictions at land borders with Canada and Mexico that bar nonessential travel such as tourism through October 21. It gave no indication if it would apply the new vaccine rules to those land border crossings.

The United States has allowed foreign air travelers from more than 150 countries throughout the pandemic, a policy that critics said made little sense because some countries with high COVID-19 rates were not on the restricted list, while some on the list had the pandemic more under control.

The action means COVID-19 vaccine requirements will now apply to nearly all foreign nationals flying to the United States – including those not subject to the prior restrictions. Americans traveling from abroad who are not vaccinated will face tougher rules than vaccinated citizens, including needing to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test within a day of travel and proof of purchasing a viral test to be taken after arrival.

The announcement comes as President Joe Biden makes his first UN General Assembly speech on Tuesday, and hosts leaders from Britain, India, Japan and Australia this week.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday the policy was not timed for diplomacy. “If we were going to make things much easier for ourselves, we would have done it prior to June, when the president had his first foreign trip, or earlier this summer. This is when the process concluded,” she said. “We’re basing it on science.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the announcement “a fantastic boost for business and trade, and great that family and friends on both sides of the pond can be reunited once again.” Germany’s US ambassador, Emily Haber, said on Twitter it was “hugely important to promote people-to-people contacts and transatlantic business.”

It will have less impact travel from China, which requires its residents to quarantine for at least two weeks on return home. International flights from China are capped and running at around 2% of 2019 levels, a situation expected to last until the second half of next year. read more

Foreign nationals will need to present proof of vaccination before travel and will not be required to quarantine on arrival. The White House said the final decision on what vaccines would be accepted is up to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The US Travel Association trade group previously estimated that the US restrictions, if they ran to the end of the year, would cost the American economy $325 billion.