Washington, Oct. 26 (U.S.) – The Biden administration has announced that children under the age of 18 and people from dozens of vaccine-deficient countries will be exempted from new rules that require most travelers to the United States to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
The government said Monday that it will require airlines to collect the contact information of passengers regardless of whether they have been vaccinated to help trace contacts, if that becomes necessary, the Associated Press reports.
From November 8, nonimmigrant foreign adults traveling to the United States will need to be fully vaccinated, with only limited exceptions, and all travelers will need to be tested for the virus before boarding a plane to the United States. Restrictions on US citizens and foreigners who have not been fully vaccinated.
The new policy comes as the Biden administration is moving away from restrictions banning non-essential travel from several dozen countries — most of Europe, China, Brazil, South Africa, India and Iran — and instead focusing on classifying individuals by the risks they pose to others.
It also reflects the White House’s embrace of vaccination requirements as a tool to get more Americans to get vaccinated by making it inconvenient not to get vaccinated.
Under the policy, those who have been vaccinated will need to show evidence of a negative COVID-19 test within three days of travel, while those who are not vaccinated must submit a test taken within one day of travel.
Children under the age of 18 will not be required to be fully vaccinated due to delays in making them eligible for vaccination in many settings. They will still need to get tested for COVID-19 unless they are two years old or younger.
Other people who will be exempt from the vaccination requirement include people who have participated in clinical trials for COVID-19, who have had severe allergic reactions to vaccines, or who are from a country where vaccines are not widely available.
This last category will cover people from countries with vaccination rates below 10% of adults. A senior administration official said they may be accepted into the United States with a government letter allowing travel for a compelling reason and not just for tourism. The official estimated that there are about 50 such countries.
The United States will accept any vaccine approved for regular or emergency use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or the World Health Organization. This includes the Chinese Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Sinopharm and Sinovac vaccines. Mixing and matching of approved shots is permitted.
The Biden administration is working with airlines, which will be required to implement the new measures. Airlines will be required to verify and match vaccine records with identification information.
Quarantine officers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will screen passengers arriving in the United States for compliance, according to an administration official. Airlines that do not comply with the requirements may be subject to penalties of up to approximately $35,000 per violation.
The new rules will replace restrictions that began in January 2020, when President Donald Trump banned most non-US citizens from China. The Trump administration has expanded this to include Brazil, Iran, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and most of Europe. President Joe Biden left this ban in effect and expanded it to include South Africa and India.
Biden has come under pressure from European allies to cancel the restrictions, especially after several European countries eased restrictions on American visitors.
“The United States is open to business with all the promise and potential that America can offer,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said after Monday’s announcement.
The US aviation industry’s main trade group applauded the management’s decision.
“We’ve seen an increase in international ticket sales over the past weeks, and we’re eager to begin safely reuniting the countless families, friends and colleagues who haven’t seen each other in nearly two years, if not longer,” Airlines for America said in statment.
The pandemic and the resulting travel restrictions have caused a drop in international travel. US and foreign airlines plan to operate about 14,000 transatlantic flights this month, just over half of the 29,000 they flew during October 2019, according to data from aviation research firm Cirium.
Lifting country-specific restrictions will help, but will be mitigated by vaccination and testing requirements, said Henry Hartfeldt, a travel industry analyst in San Francisco.
“Anyone hoping for an explosion in international visitor arrivals will be disappointed,” he said. “November 8 will be the start of a recovery in international travel in the US, but I don’t think we see a full recovery until 2023 at the earliest.”
The Biden administration has not proposed a vaccination requirement for domestic travel, which airlines vehemently oppose, saying it would be impractical due to the large number of passengers traveling within the United States each day.