Throughout the pandemic, Donald Trump has repeatedly sought to remove safeguards intended to stem the spread of the coronavirus. Now, on his way out of the White House, he’s trying to get rid of one more. On Monday, the president issued a proclamation rolling back restrictions on travel to several countries, including the United Kingdom and Brazil, despite the rise of a new COVID-19 variant that is believed to be more transmissible. “It is in the interest of the United States,” Trump said in the order, “to terminate the suspension of entry into the United States of persons who have been physically present in those jurisdictions.”
The reversal, which he ordered to take effect next week, would loosen restrictions on travelers to the U.S. from the Schengen Area of Europe, the U.K., Ireland, and Brazil, while keeping them in place against China and Iran, which Trump said “have failed to cooperate with the United States public health authorities and to share timely, accurate information about the spread of the virus.” While the policy, which was recommended by outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, would still require international travelers to test negative for COVID-19, easing the restrictions could lead to increased spread of the virus, including the mutations that have driven a surge of infections in the U.K. and elsewhere.
But the policy appears to be a non-starter, as it doesn’t take effect until January 26, nearly a week after Joe Biden assumes the presidency. The incoming administration has made clear that, rather than loosening restrictions, it plans to tighten them. “With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” incoming press secretary Jen Psaki tweeted. “On the advice of our medical team, the Administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26. In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19.”
There are arguments to be made in favor of loosening the restrictions; Marty Cetron, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s global migration and quarantine division, told Reuters last week that the entry ban Trump imposed early in the pandemic should now “be actively reconsidered.” But the Biden administration has promised a more aggressive approach to the virus, particularly as infections and deaths soar. Ronald Klain, Biden’s incoming chief of staff, suggested over the weekend that more than 100,000 more Americans could die in the coming weeks, which would put the U.S. death toll at 500,000 by the end of February. “The virus is going to get worse before it gets better,” Klain said on CNN. In imposing more stringent regulations, the incoming administration is hoping to minimize the damage the virus can cause before vaccines can bring the pandemic to heel. It’s also sending a message that after nearly a year of negligence on the part of the federal government, it will take a drastically different approach to the crisis.
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