Biden will LIFT travel bans on eight southern African on New Year's Eve: Flights will be allowed to land on December 31 after restrictions failed to stop Omicron from surging through the US
The Biden administration will lift travel restrictions imposed last month on eight southern African countries over concerns about the fast-spreading COVID-19 Omicron variant, a senior administration official said Friday.
Foreign nationals who are barred from the United States because they have been in one of the eight countries within the last 14 days will again be allowed on U.S.-bound flights leaving after 12:01 a.m. ET on December 31, the official told Reutiers.
Late last month the Biden administration barred nearly all non-U.S. citizens who had recently been in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi in an 'abundance of caution' over the variant detected in South Africa.
The official said U.S. public health agencies recommended lifting the travel restrictions because retaining them would have not a significant impact on U.S. cases given the widespread current U.S. transmission.
They also expressed confidence that an Omicron-specific vaccine would not be necessary and that existing vaccines and booster shots are highly effective.
Omicron has been detected in all 50 states. It's expected to infect as many as 60 percent of Americans by March, although the majority of those cases will likely be asymptomatic.
Coronavirus cases surged 38 percent in a 24-hour period, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released on Thursday.
Foreign nationals who are barred from the United States because they have been in one of the eight countries within the last 14 days will again be allowed on U.S.-bound flights (pictured: Atlanta airport on December 20)
President Joe Biden on Friday banned travel from eight African countries - shaded red in the map. South Africa is the only one to have direct flights to the United States, with 13 a week. Now citizens of the eight countries, or anyone who has been there recently, are unable to enter the US
Less than four weeks after the Omicron variant was first detected in the US, coronavirus cases are again soaring
The number of new infections jumped 238,278 on December 22.
Hospitalizations have increased by 11 percent over two weeks, according to the New York Times, though the number remains less than half its winter 2020 peak.
According to the outlet's COVID data tracker, the number of new cases rose by an even higher margin of 265,032 on Thursday - two days before Christmas.
Airline staffing shortages driven by COVID would likely mean any travelers who now hope to get to the US will be up against massive delays.
'This travel pause has served its purpose. It bought time to understand the science, it gave time to analyze the variant,' the official, who did not want to be identified because the decision has not yet been made public, told Reuters.
'This was not meant to keep Omicron out. We knew we couldn't do that. The point was to reduce the number of cases coming in - in those early days and weeks.'
The restrictions have not prevented flights or Americans from returning from southern Africa.
Top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci said on Monday that lifting the restrictions was likely 'because we have enough infection in our own country... We're letting in people from other countries that have as much or more infection than the southern African countries.'
President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was considering reversing the restrictions.
'We put the travel ban on just to see how much time we had before it hit here so we can begin to decide what we needed by looking at what's happening in other countries,' the president said when addressing the nation on the state of the pandemic.
'But we're past that now. And so it's something that is being raised with me by the docs now, and I'll have an answer for that soon.'
The official emphasized the restrictions were meant to be temporary and lifting them after about a month 'sends a pretty clear signal that there's not going to be a significant penalty' for coming forward to disclose new variant information.
The United States had only lifted travel restrictions on South Africa on November 8 put in place since late January to address COVID-19 concerns.
In the wake of Omicron, the United States tightened testing rules for international travelers and extended a requirement to wear masks on airplanes and at airports through March 18.
On December 6, the CDC toughened testing rules for international air travelers arriving in the United States, requiring them to obtain a negative COVID-19 test within one day of travel.
Biden said on Tuesday that he'd consider lifting the travel bans
Under prior rules, vaccinated international air travelers could present a negative test result obtained within three days of their day of departure.
The CDC last week started distributing free COVID-19 home test kits to international travelers at several airports.
The CDC encourages - but does not mandate - international air travelers to get a new COVID-19 test three to five days after arriving in the United States.
Last month the agency ordered airlines to disclose passenger names and other information about those who have recently been in the eight southern African countries.
Meanwhile, the soaring number of coronavirus cases is further fueling holiday travel chaos as staffing shortages force major airlines to cancel hundreds of pre-Christmas flights.
United Airlines has canceled at least 169 flights scheduled for today, while Delta Airlines said it has canceled about 120. Alaska Airlines said it had canceled 10.
United and Delta said they were working to contact passengers so they would not be stranded at airports.
South Africa, where scientists first sounded the alarm to the global community about the Omicron strain, has announced it will end quarantine for asymptomatic cases because containment of the virus is 'no longer viable'.
New graphs show the country's COVID outbreak, once feared to be out-of-control, has faded after a month and less than 10 days after peaking at 26,976 on December 15.
South African health officials also said contact tracing would be stopped save for large gatherings and self-contained settings.
It became ground zero for the new variant in late November and saw a new wave of infections that surged from 670 to more than 20,000 within three weeks.
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