The United States will lift on December 31 the restrictions it imposed on travelers from South Africa and seven other countries in the South of the African continent after the appearance of the omicron variant of the coronavirus, the White House announced on Friday.
One of the spokesmen for the White House, Kevin Muñoz, said on Twitter that President Joe Biden had made that decision following the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the highest authorities on public health in the United States. .UU.
“The restrictions gave us time to understand omicrón and we know that our vaccines work against omicrón, especially the booster doses,” added Muñoz.
The restrictions affected, in addition to South Africa, Mozambique, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, and Eswatini.
Those restrictions affected travelers who had been in those nations for the past fourteen days.
They did not, however, impact US citizens or legal permanent residents of the US who were in those countries, although the Government did require them to present a negative covid-19 test before flying to US territory.
