The number of Covid-19 cases in Southeast Asia crossed 11.59 million, with 61,942 new cases reported on Tuesday, higher than Monday’s tally of 60,156. Asean also saw 1,089 additional deaths, an increase from Monday’s 1,084, taking total coronavirus deaths to 254,229.
Vietnam reported 11,692 new cases and 240 deaths on Tuesday, with cumulative cases in the country being 707,436 patients and a total 17,545 deaths so far.
Non-essential services, including hair salons and restaurants, across the capital Hanoi resumed on Tuesday as the city eased Covid-19 restrictions.
Food and drink establishments have been permitted to reopen for takeaways and delivery services only and must close before 9pm each day. Other daily life services including traditional markets and stores selling stationery and textbooks also reopened.
Meanwhile, Malaysia’s Health Ministry aims to inoculate 80 per cent of eligible children before school reopens in 2022, after it revealed that 67 students died from Covid-19 this year compared to six in 2020.
Statistics also showed an increasing trend of infections among those up to 18 years old in the country.
Malaysia reported 15,759 new cases and 301 deaths on Tuesday, bringing cumulative cases to 2,127,934 patients and a total 23,744 deaths.
NEW YORK – President Joe Biden defended the messy end to the war in Afghanistan and made a case Tuesday that the world can come together to confront global threats such as climate change and the coronavirus, as he sought to address allies increasing qualms about American leadership.
In his first speech to the United Nations as president, Biden affirmed U.S. support for it and other international partnerships. He pledged additional support for poorer countries often disproportionately affected by climate change and said the challenges of the future require leaving old conflicts in the past.
“We’ve ended 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan, and as we close this era of endless war we are opening an era of endless diplomacy,” Biden said.
His measured address was notable mostly for its contrast to the boastful tone and sour reception that marked addresses by President Donald Trump.
Biden drew applause when he closed with a note that his speech was the first by a U.S. president in “20 years with the United States not at war.”
“We’ve turned the page. All the unmatched strength, energy and commitment, will and resources of our nation are now fully and squarely focused on what’s ahead of us, not what was behind,” Biden said.
“I know this – as we look ahead, we will lead – we will lead on all of the greatest challenges of our time, from covid to climate, peace and security, human dignity and human rights, but we will not go it alone.”
U.S. forces continue to serve combat tours in Iraq, where about 2,500 American troops protect a handful of bases with the consent of Baghdad.
On Monday, the U.S. military conducted a drone strike in northwestern Syria in what it called a “kinetic strike” targeting a senior leader of al-Qaida.
Biden tried to justify a foreign policy increasingly built on a broad challenge to China, though he avoided directly addressing or even naming the country he has elsewhere called the United States’ most significant competitor.
Biden announced plans to double U.S. funding for poorer nations seeking to address climate change, if Congress agrees. Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a recorded address, appeared to one-up Biden with a surprise announcement that China will no longer build coal-fired power plants abroad.
Xi also appeared to take a swipe at the United States over the collapse of the effort to build a democracy in Afghanistan.
“Recent developments in the global situation show once again that military intervention from the outside and so-called democratic transformation entail nothing but harm,” Xi said.
Biden had renounced what he called “nation building” as he closed down the sprawling, multibillion-dollar effort this year. The theocratic Taliban militant movement displaced by the United States and NATO in 2001 is now back in charge.
“Both leaders are seeking to establish themselves as working responsibly to manage U.S.-China relations and implicitly suggesting that if there is a further breakdown in relations, it is the other side’s fault,” said Ryan Hass, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Other reception for Biden’s address at the United Nations was muted.
“Pedestrian” but not problematic, said Elliott Abrams, a foreign policy veteran of three Republican administrations.
Biden met with Iraq’s prime minister before leaving New York, and also with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison. He will also see Morrison at the White House on Friday, following a surprise announcement that Australia would purchase U.S.-made nuclear submarines, a major military challenge to China in its Pacific neighborhood. The arrangement infuriated France, which had contracted to provide less capable vessels. French officials claim they were blindsided.
Biden did not mention the controversy during his speech but tried to show that the United States is not charting a solo course.
“We must choose to do more than we think we can do alone so that we accomplish what we must together,” he said. “Ending this pandemic and making sure we’re better prepared for the next one, staving off climactic climate change and increasing our resilience to the impacts we already are seeing, ensuring a future where technologies are a vital tool to solving human challenges and empowering human potential, not a source of greater strife and repression.”
The fence-mending follows several setbacks for Biden as he attempts to rebuild trust among allies after four years of Trump. European allies have grown increasingly skeptical about Biden’s message that “America is back” in light of an Afghanistan withdrawal that left NATO nations feeling sidelined and as he advances a China agenda that many find needlessly confrontational.
Biden persuaded ambivalent allies to take a slightly tougher public line against China over human rights and economic practices during his first trip abroad, in June. But he has gotten little public backing for his broader argument that China could pose an existential threat to democratic governments in the future, and that old conflicts such as Afghanistan are a distraction.
“The world of today is not the same world as 2001,” Biden said of the year the Afghan conflict began in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
“We’ll stand up for our allies and our friends and oppose attempts by stronger countries to dominate weaker ones,” Biden said of his posture toward U.S. adversaries, but he added that he does not intend to escalate hostility. “We are not seeking a new Cold War or a world divided into rigid blocs.”
Biden entered the gathering of global leaders shadowed by the rift with France, whose foreign minister has openly questioned whether Biden really represents a change from Trump, who distrusted traditional alliances and rejected consensus.
“We can only acknowledge that this spirit is still the same” as under Trump, Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters Monday.
“A basic principle among allies is we talk to one another. We can’t hide and put together some alternative strategies. This is surprising and shocking; this is why there is a crisis of trust beyond the fact that the contract is being broken.”
The concern among European leaders that Biden is taking a go-it-alone approach includes the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he said. Several NATO allies opposed Biden’s Aug. 31 withdrawal deadline but felt powerless to argue against it. Others grumbled that the United States didn’t have sufficient plans in place when the moment came, leading to scenes of chaos as foreigners and vulnerable Afghans rushed to flee a Taliban takeover.
Europeans have also raised alarm of a refugee crisis or terrorism arising from the collapse of the Western-backed government in Afghanistan.
“The Europeans should not be left behind in a strategy chosen by the United States,” Le Drian said.
French President Emmanuel Macron temporarily recalled his ambassadors to the United States and Australia in protest, an unprecedented breach between Washington and Paris that left the White House scrambling. Biden and Macron are expected to speak by phone this week.
Biden hosted British Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the White House later Tuesday. The populist Johnson was a Trump favorite for his successful effort to withdraw Britain from the European Union. His relationship with Biden is businesslike but cooperative as Britain prepares to host a marquee climate summit in November.
The two made small talk in the Oval Office and Johnson thanked Biden for his remarks underscoring a renewed U.S. commitment to addressing climate change.
“It’s fantastic to see the United States really stepping up,” Johnson said.
Even as it has embraced more aggressive action to cut emissions under Biden, the United States has faced criticism for not doing more to pay its fair share to help more vulnerable countries battered by climate change.
In April, the Biden administration promised to double its annual climate financing to developing countries by 2024, to $5.7 billion – a figure some critics said was too little given the U.S. role as the world’s largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases.
Biden pledged Tuesday that he will work with Congress to again double that request.
“This will make the United States the leader of public climate finance, and with our added support, together with increased private capital and other – from other donors, we’ll be able to meet the goal of mobilizing $100 billion to support climate action in developing nations,” he said.
Collectively, the world is far off target from the goals of the 2015 Paris climate agreement and remains on a trajectory that scientists and many policymakers have described as “catastrophic.”
Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris compact; Biden won goodwill among major allies by rejoining it in one of his first actions as president.
But distrust and exasperation persist among small, developing nations that have done little to cause climate change but often have been most ravaged by its effects.
Developed countries pledged more than a decade ago to begin providing $100 billion annually by 2020 to help the most defenseless nations deal with the deepening consequences of sea-level rise, heat waves, intensifying hurricanes and other effects of warming – and to hasten the transition away from fossil fuels as those economies grow.
That money has never fully materialized.
According to an updated analysis this month from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, developed nations mobilized $79.6 billion in 2019 to help poorer countries grapple with climate change – a 2 percent increase from the previous year but still a $20 billion broken promise.
“Failure to fulfill this pledge would be a major source of the erosion of trust between developed and developing countries,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres told reporters on Monday. “Developed nations need to bridge this gap.”
The number of Covid-19 cases crossed 11.53 million across Southeast Asia, with 60,156 new cases reported on Monday, lower than Sunday’s 63,862. The number of deaths was lower at 1,084 from Sunday’s 1,094. The death toll in Asean is now 253,104.
Vietnam will ease up disease control measures in Hanoi from Wednesday onwards after new infections in the city decreased to 20 people per day on average and more than 94 per cent of adult population have been vaccinated with the first jab. The city will continue to maintain social distancing measures while most of the construction sites have been allowed to open as usual.
Vietnam reported 8,681 new cases and 215 deaths on Monday, with a cumulative 695,744 patients and 17,305 deaths.
Meanwhile, the Philippines will reopen up to 120 schools for limited in-person classes for the first time since the start of the coronavirus pandemic in a pilot approved by President Rodrigo Duterte. Up to 100 public schools in areas considered “minimal risk” for virus transmission will be allowed to take part in the two-month trial, while 20 private schools can also participate. Classrooms will be open to children in kindergarten to Grade 3, and senior high school, but limited to not exceeding 20 students per class in a half-day session. It has yet to announce when the programme will start.
The FDA is likely to authorize Pfizer booster shots this week for many Americans at high risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus, now that a key advisory committee has voted to recommend the measure, media reported.
COVID-19 vaccine for younger children and booster shots for at least those over 65 years old are being prepared in accordance with a tight schedule in the United States, as the Americans stagger into the 19th month of their fierce fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 7-day average of confirmed cases of the pandemic stood at 148,202 nationwide on Sunday, with its 14-day change striking an 8-percent fall, according to The New York Times (NYT). COVID-19-related deaths were 2,011 on Sunday, with the 14-day change realizing a 29-percent rise.
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California, once the country’s epicenter of COVID-19, is now the U.S. state reporting the lowest positivity rate per 100,000 people. As of Saturday evening, 24.99 new confirmed cases were reported for every 100,000 people in this Golden State, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Kindergarten children play toys in a classroom at Montrara Ave. Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 16, 2021. (Xinhua)
A lower dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, one-third the amount given to adults and teens, is safe and triggered a robust immune response in children as young as 5 years old, the drug companies announced in a news release Monday morning.
“The finding, eagerly anticipated by many parents and pediatricians, is a crucial step toward the two-shot coronavirus vaccine regimen becoming available for younger school-aged children, perhaps close to Halloween,” reported The Washington Post.
However, the companies must prepare and submit the data to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), a process they expect to complete by the end of September. Then, the data, not yet published or peer reviewed, will be scrutinized by regulators to ascertain that the vaccine is safe and effective. That could take weeks, or up to a month.
According to the companies, the two-dose shot was found to be safe and well tolerated among the children in the study, with the vaccine generating levels of antibodies that were similar to those of younger adults, which met the study’s measurements of success.
Meanwhile, Pfizer and BioNTech said that they had not yet determined vaccine efficacy, or how well it protects against COVID-19 for children in the age group.
“We are eager to extend the protection afforded by the vaccine to this younger population, subject to regulatory authorization, especially as we track the spread of the Delta variant and the substantial threat it poses to children,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said in a statement.
Photo taken on Aug. 23, 2021 shows Pfizer signage at Pfizer
BOOSTER IN SIGHT
The FDA is likely to authorize Pfizer booster shots this week for many Americans at high risk of falling seriously ill from the coronavirus, now that a key advisory committee has voted to recommend the measure, reported NYT on Monday.
On Friday, a panel of experts endorsed offering Pfizer booster shots for those aged 65 and older, and people 16 and over who are at high risk of getting severe COVID-19 or who work in settings that make them more likely to get infected.
The agency, which often follows the committee’s advice but is not required to, is expected to decide early this week. An advisory committee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is scheduled to meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss booster shots before that agency, which sets vaccine policy, issues its recommendations.
Interviewed with news media on Sunday, Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease doctor and an adviser to the White House, asked Americans to be patient and not to get a booster shot until they were eligible. That includes people aged 65 and over who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines.
Last month, the Biden administration proposed a plan that would have made all vaccinated Americans eligible for a booster shot eight months after their second shot, or their first in the case of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
In the meantime, the expert panel concluded that boosters were not necessary for most younger, healthier Americans, unless their jobs put them at special risk for infection.
RISING INSURANCE
In 2020, as the pandemic took hold, U.S. health insurance companies declared they would cover 100 percent of the costs for COVID-19 treatment, waiving co-pays and expensive deductibles for hospital stays that frequently range into hundreds of thousands of dollars.
But this year, most insurers have reinstated co-pays and deductibles for COVID-19 patients, in many cases even before vaccines became widely available. “The companies imposed the costs as industry profits remained strong or grew in 2020, with insurers paying out less to cover elective procedures that hospitals suspended during the crisis,” reported The Washington Post on Monday.
Now the financial burden of COVID-19 is falling unevenly on patients across the country, varying widely by health-care plan and geography, according to a survey of the country’s two largest health plans in every state by the nonprofit and nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.
Last year, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 88 percent of people covered by private insurance had their co-pays and deductibles for COVID-19 treatment waived. By August 2021, only 28 percent of the two largest plans in each state and Washington, D.C. still had the waivers in place, and another 10 percent planned to phase them out by the end of October.
America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry’s lobbying and trade group, said insurance companies began to reinstate cost-sharing for COVID-19 treatment as vaccines became available and in recognition that the coronavirus will be an ongoing health challenge.
“After a year and a half, it’s pretty clear that COVID-19 is here to stay, that this is a continuing health condition,” AHIP spokesman David Allen was quoted as saying. “When it comes to treatment, we’re looking at it like we would treat any other health condition.”
People walk past a pharmacy in Washington D.C., the United States, on Nov. 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
The 1918 flu killed an estimated 675,000 Americans. It was considered Americas most lethal pandemic in recent history up until now.
U.S. COVID-19 deaths on Monday surpassed 675,000, the estimated U.S. fatalities from the 1918 influenza pandemic.
As of 4:21 p.m. ET on Monday, 675,446 Americans were killed due to COVID-19, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Total COVID-19 cases in the country were over 42 million.
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The fatalities are expected to continue to rise as the country is currently experiencing another wave of new infections, fueled by the fast-spreading Delta variant.
“The number of reported deaths from COVID in the US will surpass the toll of the 1918 flu pandemic this month. We cannot become hardened to the continuing, and largely preventable, tragedy,” tweeted Tom Frieden, the former head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Sept. 13.
The 1918 flu killed an estimated 675,000 Americans, according to the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention. It was considered America’s most lethal pandemic in recent history up until now.
“President Biden has asked to be able to speak with President Macron to talk about the way forward, to talk about his deep commitment to the U.S. alliance with France,” a senior Biden administration official said.
U.S. President Joe Biden is seeking to hold a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, U.S. officials said on Monday, an effort to reduce tensions caused by a controversial submarine deal.
A diplomatic rift emerged between Washington and Paris over the announcement that the United States and Britain will support Australia to develop nuclear-powered submarines, depriving France of a contract to provide conventional submarines to Australia.
Outraged by the abrupt move without notice, France recalled its ambassadors to the United States and Australia for consultations on Friday.
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“President Biden has asked to be able to speak with President Macron to talk about the way forward, to talk about his deep commitment to the U.S. alliance with France,” a senior Biden administration official told reporters in a call briefing on Monday.
“We understand the French position, we don’t share their view in terms of how this all developed,” said the official. “We think that will be an important moment and opportunity for the two leaders to speak directly with one another.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters in a briefing later Monday that the call would take place “in the coming days,” while noting officials are still working on scheduling it.
Under the new security partnership unveiled on Wednesday between Australia, Britain, and the United States, known as AUKUS, Australia will build nuclear-powered submarines with U.S. and British technology.
On Thursday, Australia announced it would scrap the deal with France signed in 2016 to purchase 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines.
French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian on Thursday called the trilateral move a “stab in the back.” “We had established a relationship of trust with Australia. This trust has been betrayed,” he said.
“The American behavior worries me; this unilateral and brutal decision is very similar to what Mr. (Donald) Trump was doing,” he added.
“Its the developed world that over 200 years has put the carbon in the atmosphere that is causing this acceleration of climate change and, say, it really is up to us to help them,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday that COP26 UN Climate Change Conference is “a turning point” for the world.
“I think the Glasgow COP26 is a turning point for the world. And it’s the moment when we have to grow up and take our responsibilities,” Johnson told reporters at the UN headquarters in New York following the closing of the Informal Leaders Roundtable on Climate Action.
Calling on the rich countries to honor their pledge to provide each year 100 billion U.S. dollars for the climate action in the developing countries, the prime minister said that “it is the developing world that is bearing the brunt of catastrophic climate change in the forms of hurricanes and fires and floods and the real long-term economic damage that they face.”
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“It’s the developed world that over 200 years has put the carbon in the atmosphere that is causing this acceleration of climate change and, say, it really is up to us to help them,” he added.
Earlier, Johnson told the roundtable that “history will judge” the world’s richest nations if they fail to deliver on their pledge to commit 100 billion dollars in annual climate aid ahead of COP26. He placed the chances of securing the money before November at “six out of 10.”
“We cannot let climate action become another victim of coronavirus. Let us be the leaders who secure the very health of the planet for our children, grandchildren and generations to come,” Johnson said at the event.
The prime minister also assured his country “will lead by example, keeping the environment on the global agenda and serving as a launch pad for a global green industrial revolution.”
However, he warned that “no one country can turn the tide, it would be akin to bailing out a liner with a single bucket.”
The roundtable follows the recent report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, signaling a “code red for humanity,” and comes less than six weeks before the COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.
The roundtable addresses the gaps that remain on the actions urgently needed from national governments — especially the G20 — on mitigation, finance and adaptation.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to reporters after attending the Informal Leaders Roundtable on Climate Action at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern partially eased a lockdown in Auckland, but urged people in the nations largest city to stay at home and avoid social contact as the government struggles to stamp out a delta coronavirus outbreak.
Auckland will move to Alert Level 3 at midnight Tuesday, allowing some businesses to reopen, Ardern said Monday in Wellington. But it will remain at that level for at least two weeks and the rest of the country will stay at Level 2, requiring social distancing and mask wearing in indoor public spaces.
“We are not stepping out of Level 4 because the job is done, but nor are we moving because we don’t think we can achieve the goal of stamping out Covid-19,” Ardern said. “We are moving because Level 3 still provides a cautious approach where we continue to stamp out Covid-19.”
Auckland has already been in lockdown for more than a month. While the restrictions have managed to contain the outbreak, new cases continue to be detected every day. Three new infections just outside the Auckland border — one a child who attended school while infectious — prompted the government to today impose a snap lockdown in that area for five days.
For Auckland, Level 3 doesn’t mean lockdown is lifted. It allows businesses to resume contactless operations but people are still asked to stay at home and work remotely if possible. Schools, daycare centers, shops and public venues are largely closed, and gatherings are restricted.
In a boost for the hospitality sector, Ardern said the gathering limit for the rest of the country under Level 2 has been raised to 100 from 50.
North Korea on Monday condemned a new defense pact by the United States, Australia and Britain, and a plan to share nuclear submarine technology with Australia, saying the deal could trigger a nuclear arms race and upset the balance in the Asia-Pacific region.
The Biden administration announced the three-nation pact, called AUKUS, on Wednesday. The surprise decision to share sensitive nuclear submarine technology with Australia has already prompted a swift backlash from China – the apparent target of the pact – and set off a diplomatic spat with France by scuttling an earlier deal in which Australia would have purchased 12 French diesel-powered submarines.
“These are extremely undesirable and dangerous acts which will upset the strategic balance in the Asia-Pacific region and trigger off a chain of nuclear arms race,” North Korean state news media Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry official as saying. “It is quite natural that neighboring countries including China condemned these actions as irresponsible ones of destroying the peace and stability of the region and the international nuclear nonproliferation system and of catalyzing the arms race,” the official added.
The North Korean condemnation comes just days after Pyongyang test-fired a pair of ballistic missiles and a new long-range cruise missile, stoking tensions in the first public testing activity in months amid a prolonged deadlock in nuclear talks with Washington. North Korea has so far not responded to outreach efforts by the Biden administration.
State media reported that North Korea developed the cruise missiles over two years, fulfilling key defense goals set by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – a claim that hinted at the possible nuclear capability of the missiles. KCNA described the missiles as a “strategic weapon of great significance.”
South and North Korea have both been developing increasingly sophisticated weapons amid stalled efforts to ease tension on the peninsula. South Korea tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile on Wednesday. In a commentary published Monday by state media, the chief of a North Korean military think tank, Jang Chang Ha, derided the South’s effort as “clumsy.”
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In a statement on its defense plans last week, South Korea said that “the military will work to ensure security and peace on the Korean Peninsula by achieving powerful deterrence capabilities through the development of missiles that are stronger, and can go further and with more precision.”
Responding to news of the trilateral security pact on Monday, the unnamed North Korean ministry official described the United States as “the chief culprit toppling the international nuclear nonproliferation system,” adding that its “double-dealing attitude” was threatening “world peace and stability.”
The official said that North Korea will “certainly take a corresponding counteraction in case it has even a little adverse impact on the security of our country.”
Australia said last week it has “no plans to acquire nuclear weapons” and that the submarine proposal will “remain consistent with Australia’s long-standing commitment to nuclear non-proliferation” – a global stance Prime Minister Scott Morrison said all three nations are committed to upholding.
Nuclear-powered submarines have a longer range, and they can travel underwater at a higher sustained speed, than their diesel-electric-powered equivalents. That could offer advantages in a head-to-head confrontation with the Chinese military, which has significantly grown its navy in recent years and plans to expand its fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
WASHINGTON – The White House announced on Monday that it would be lifting blanket travel restrictions on visitors from Europe, Britain and other countries that had been imposed at the start of the pandemic.
Under rules to take effect in early November, fully vaccinated travelers from anywhere in the world would be able to fly to the United States, though they would also be subject to new testing and contact-tracing procedures, Jeff Zients, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in a call with reporters.
Zients said the new system “follows the science” to keep Americans and international travel safe and would be “relying on individuals, rather than a country-based approach, so it’s a stronger system.”
The announcement came as President Joe Biden prepared to meet face-to-face this week with world leaders and diplomats at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. It also comes at a time of tense relations between Washington and Europe.
European leaders have voiced frustration with the administration’s handling of the pullout from Afghanistan, while France is enraged by a U.S. deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia that undercut its own agreement.
The travel ban – though a low-profile issue in the United States – had been particularly galling to Europeans, with one British newspaper dubbing it “Kafkaesque.”
“Over the past few months the travel ban went from a minor irritant in the transatlantic relationship to an existential threat to Biden’s Europe policy. There was simply no scientific justification for it after European vaccination rates exceeded those of the United States,” said Thomas Wright, director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution.
The ban on entry to travelers who had been almost anywhere in Europe in the previous 14 days was first imposed by the Trump administration, by executive order, more than 550 days ago. It has been kept in place under Biden, even as the coronavirus picture improved in Europe and worsened in the United States.
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Though exceptions were made for U.S. citizens and permanent residents, along with a small number of visa holders, the strict rules had stopped millions of potential travelers, costing businesses and leading to profound personal disruption for Europeans, many of whom missed major life events, from births to deaths.
In total, the travel restrictions had impacted 33 nations, including Britain, India and China. The White House announcement on Monday applies to all travelers from outside the United States arriving via air.
However, the most vocal reaction was from Europe, which accounts for a large portion of visitors to the United States and where diplomats had become increasingly outspoken over the restrictions.
“Travel ban lifted!” tweeted Stavros Lambrinidis, the European Union’s Ambassador to Washington, who only hours earlier had said that E.U. member states had been “working diligently” to help get the ban lifted.
Many on the continent had expected the United States to lift the restrictions over the summer, in return for their own relaxation of restrictions on travelers from the United States in June. But no reciprocal move was forthcoming.
Some diplomats fumed that while the restrictions were once understandable, they had become nonsensical, with few restrictions on U.S. travelers who could carry the virus, even when they were coming from countries with low rates of vaccination and high rates of daily cases.
Although the European Union had initially lagged behind in vaccinations, it overtook the United States this summer. As of last week, about 60 percent of the 27-nation bloc was fully vaccinated, compared to 53 percent in the United States, where pockets of anti-vaccination sentiment have helped slow early success.
“The issue had been rising among public opinion in Europe, and European leaders were increasingly under pressure to impose reciprocity on Americans,” said Benjamin Haddad, senior director of the Europe Center at the Atlantic Council.
Monday’s announcement appeared to mark an abrupt U-turn in thinking from the Biden administration. Last week, citing the spread of the delta variant, Zients told a meeting with representatives from the U.S. travel industry that the administration was “maintaining the existing travel restrictions at this point,” and the White House stated there was no imminent policy change.
It is unclear if heightened political tensions in the U.S.-EU relationship ultimately pushed the United States to drop the ban.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a long discussion about the travel ban on Friday with the French ambassador to Washington, Philippe Etienne, just before Etienne was ordered to return to Paris due to France’s anger over a U.S.-UK-Australia submarine deal, said a senior State Department official familiar with the matter.
When asked if the decision to lift the ban was aimed at restoring relations with Europe after recent such setbacks, Erica Barks-Ruggles, a State Department official at the Bureau of International Organizations, said the decision was “driven by the science.”
Some details of the new rules may also need to be ironed out. It is not yet clear if vaccines that have not been authorized in the United States, such as the Oxford-AstraZeneca shot or vaccines made by China and Russia, will be accepted.
Under the new rules, vaccinated travelers to the United States will have to test negative for the virus within three days before departure. The new policy also requires that airlines collect passenger information, including a phone number and email, to improve contact-tracing efforts.
Federal health officials sought to impose such a requirement early in the pandemic, but the effort stalled. In February, seven U.S. carriers announced they would collect passenger information from international travelers on U.S.-bound flights. However, it was up to individuals to voluntarily provide the information. Under the White House’s new policy, international travelers will be required to provide their details.
However the decision came about, many across the Atlantic welcomed it.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is set to meet Biden at the White House on Tuesday, tweeted he was “delighted” with the news. British newspapers had reported Monday morning that he planned to press the issue with his U.S. counterpart.
The prime minister said it was a “fantastic boost for business and trade, and great that family and friends on both sides of the pond can be reunited once again.”
Ylva Johansson, the E.U.’s commissioner for home affairs, said she “welcomes” the decision. Margaritis Schinas, the E.U. Commission’s vice president for promoting the European way of life, called the new policy “sound and long-awaited.”
“When I met my US counterparts in July in Lisbon I told them that mobility cannot be reserved for the elite alone,” he wrote on Twitter. “People need to travel not only officials. Europe the most vaccinated continent in the world.”
The change will mean a big boost to the tourism industry. Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, said it will ensure that international travel can resume in a manner that will keep people safe and protect jobs.
“We applaud the Biden administration for announcing plans to reunite families and open travel with strict procedures to ensure transportation doesn’t aid in the spread of the virus,” Nelson said. “International travel is essential to the stability of our jobs and the full recovery of the U.S. airline industry, but recovery is only possible if we remain focused first on safety and health.”
Kindergarten children play toys in a classroom at Montrara Ave. Elementary School in Los Angeles, California, the United States, on Aug. 16, 2021. (Xinhua)
People walk past a pharmacy in Washington D.C., the United States, on Nov. 12, 2020. (Xinhua/Liu Jie)
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson speaks to reporters after attending the Informal Leaders Roundtable on Climate Action at the UN headquarters in New York, on Sept. 20, 2021. (Xinhua/Wang Ying)
