According to reports, when the United States reopens to international travellers, a new entrance procedure will be in place. The new strategy will include contact tracing.
The government, however, has not provided a timeline for the current travel restrictions to be relaxed.
Previous reports suggested that the White House was working on vaccination entry requirements for foreign visitors to the United States, and the White House confirmed that it was considering to fo so.
Jeff Zients, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, stated: “The American people need to trust that the new system for international travel is safer even as we – I mean at that point – we’ll be letting in more travelers. We are exploring considering vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States.”
At a meeting of the US Travel and Tourism Advisory Board, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated that the present surge of domestic COVID-19 cases is preventing international travel restrictions from being lifted.
“We want to move to a metrics-based system,” said Raimondo. “Before we can do that, we have to get a better handle on the domestic situation, which requires us to get everyone vaccinated.”
The new strategy, according to Zients, would “replace current restrictions” and will be “safer, stronger, and sustainable.” He didn’t go into great detail about the plan, but he did say that contact tracing would be involved, noting that the US would collect contact tracing data from passengers entering the country in order for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to contact arrivals who had been exposed to COVID-19.
The White House also wants the program ready to launch when it is safe to relax travel restrictions, according to Zients.
In response to the report, the American Society of Travel Advisors urged the administration to reopen travel.
“A plan to restart international travel is long overdue. We urge the Biden Administration to finalize this plan as quickly as possible and to otherwise make safely restarting international travel occur by opening borders an immediate priority,” the statement read.
“The plan should incorporate the common-sense measures we called for along with our travel industry colleagues last week, including expeditiously developing clear vaccination and testing standards, loosening entry restrictions for fully-vaccinated travelers and aligning standards with the governments of our main outbound markets, including Canada, the EU and the U.K. Given its enormous impact on the global economy, an expedited recovery of cross-border travel is critical.
The travel and tourist industry has been severely hit by this pandemic and will be the last to recover. At the same time, the financial assistance granted to our industry by governments both in the United States and elsewhere has been uneven at best.
“The travel industry as a whole will not recover from COVID until international travel restarts in earnest. We urge the Biden Administration in the strongest possible terms to do its part to make that happen.”
– India’s new age travel digital media
