WASHINGTON — The United States will lift travel restrictions to eight southern African countries, including Zimbabwe, on New Year’s Eve, the White House announced Friday.
The restrictions, imposed last month, were meant to blunt the spread of the Covid omicron variant.
The November 29 ban barred nearly all non-US citizens who had recently been in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.
White House spokesman Kevin Munoz said on Twitter that the decision was recommended by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Munoz said the temporary travel bans bought scientists necessary time to study the new virus variant and conclude that the current vaccinations are effective in blunting its impact.
Omicron is now spreading rapidly throughout the US, including among the vaccinated, but a huge majority of those being hospitalised are unvaccinated.
“The restrictions gave us time to understand Omicron and we know our existing vaccines work against Omicron, esp boosted,” Munoz wrote on Twitter.
The World Health Organisation and other global health experts criticised the travel bans, with United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres saying on December 1 that restrictions that isolated any one country or region were “not only deeply unfair and punitive – they are ineffective”.
“With a virus that is truly borderless, travel restrictions that isolate any one country or region are not only deeply unfair and punitive – they are ineffective,” Guterres said at a news conference at that time, calling instead for increased testing for travellers.
A senior White House official added that with Omicron present across the US and globally, international travellers from the eight affected countries would not have a significant effect on US cases.
“During the travel pause President Biden reduced the time for pre-departure testing to one day opposed to three days … travellers from these eight countries will be subject to these same strict protocols,” the official said.
Later on Friday, the State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken thanked South Africa and its scientists for “their transparency and expertise” around identifying the Omicron variant in a phone call with his counterpart Naledi Pandor.
“He emphasized the importance of the longstanding partnership between the United States and South Africa to combat the impacts of COVID-19,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement describing the call.
The CDC said earlier this week that Omicron has become the dominant coronavirus strain in the US, accounting for 73 percent of new infections. – Online