United States to permit entry of fully vaccinated international travellers from November 8

The United States will open its borders for foreign travellers who are fully vaccinated against COVID-19 from November 8, the White House announced on Friday. The new announcement will be applicable for both international air travel or by crossing land borders.

In a tweet, Kevin Munoz, White House Assistant Press Secretary, informed, "The US’ new travel policy that requires vaccination for foreign national travellers to the US will begin on Nov 8. This announcement & date applies to both int'l air travel & land travel."

Foreign national travellers will be able to travel to America if they provide proof of vaccination. The travel policy change was informed in September, but the president's palace announced the date it will come effective on Friday.

Earlier this week, the White House had announced that it would ease COVID-19 restrictions for double jabbed foreign nationals for non-essential travel. According to AP, a White House official said that the CDCP (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) has informed commercial airlines that FDA approved and WHO Emergency Use listing Vaccines are acceptable. The guidelines on acceptable vaccines will be issued in the coming weeks.

US travel restrictions were first imposed in January 2020 when then-President Donal Trump restricted travel from China. After the move failed to stop COVID spread in the United States, additional countries were added to this list where COVID cases were high.

Covid Cases in the US

According to Worldometers, the US has so far reported 45,639,563 COVID-19 cases and 7,41,898 deaths. 35,205,258 individuals have also recovered from the illness. On Thursday, the US reported 89,689 fresh cases and 1,654 new deaths.

White House chief medical advisor Dr Anthony Fauci recently said that the COVID cases in the US are dropping but noted that the virus is not yet under 'control'. He said that fully eliminating the disease will be tough as the world has only managed to fully eradicate smallpox.