Biden is “considering” reversing travel restrictions from South Africa
US President Joe Biden said Tuesday that he is “considering” reversing travel restrictions from South Africa and other African countries imposed by his government last November after the appearance of the omicron variant. Biden has responded like this to journalists after his speech about the new variant of covid-19, whose presence in the United States was confirmed on December 1 after a case reported in California. “I am going to speak with my team in the next few days,” added the president, who admitted that it is a matter that doctors are raising with him.
“I will have an answer for that soon,” he added. The president justified that the decision was adopted to determine how long they had before an omicron case was detected in the country and to determine what they needed to face it. Washington’s ban, which came into effect on November 29, affects travelers from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia. Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi. Earlier this month, the US government’s top epidemiologist, Anthony Fauci, said he expected the United States to review these travel restrictions within “a reasonable period of time.”
The measure has been harshly criticized, even by the World Health Organization (WHO), for “penalizing” those countries after detecting the new variant of covid-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English) revealed this Monday that omicron is already the most contagious variant of the coronavirus in the United States, where between December 12 and 18 it accounted for 73.2% of new cases. (Eph)
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