- US government developing international travel reopening plan.
- Foreign travelers entering US will have to have vaccination proof.
- Only vaccinated travelers will be allowed entry to the USA.
According to a White House official, US Government is working on a plan to require almost all foreign visitors to the United States to show a proof of having been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 when travel restrictions, that ban travelers from most of the world from entering the country, are finally lifted.
An unnamed official said that the White House wants to re-open travel, which would boost business for the airlines and tourism industry, but travel restrictions that are currently barring visitors from many countries from traveling to the US wouldn’t be struck immediately, given the rise of the highly transmittable Delta variant of the virus.
The Biden administration has interagency working groups working “to have a new system ready for when we can reopen travel,” the official said, adding it includes “a phased approach that over time will mean, with limited exceptions, that foreign nationals traveling to the United States (from all countries) need to be fully vaccinated.”
The extraordinary U.S. travel restrictions were first imposed on China in January 2020 to address the spread of COVID-19. Numerous other countries have been added, most recently India in May.
The official’s comments were the strongest signal to date that the White House sees a path to unwinding those restrictions.
The White House official did not immediately answer questions about whether the administration is developing plans to also require visitors arriving from Mexico and Canada to be vaccinated before crossing land borders.
Currently, the only foreign travelers allowed to cross by land into the United States from Mexico and Canada are essential workers such as truck drivers or nurses.
The United States currently bars most non-U.S. citizens who within the last 14 days have been in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen nations in Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.
