United States lifts travel ban on vaccinated visitors



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British officials noted that the United States had not imposed a similar ban on people from Caribbean countries, which had a higher infection rate than Britain, or from Argentina, which had a higher rate of infection. lower of its vaccinated population. About 82% of people over 16 in Britain have had two injections.

Britain and several countries in the European Union allow fully vaccinated people from the United States to travel without quarantine, and officials there were upset when the United States failed to release the the same. The European Union has since turned around and recommended that its members impose more restrictions on American travelers.

“It’s a tremendous boost for business and commerce, and it’s great that family and friends on both sides of the pond can come together again,” Mr Johnson said in a tweet.

The ban, European officials point out, has kept families separated since early 2020, as the coronavirus erupted across Europe. European countries have resisted a third wave of infections propelled by the Delta variant. But in several countries, including Britain, infection rates have started to stabilize and even decline.

The travel ban is one of the many sources of tension in the transatlantic relationship. European allies criticized Biden for failing to consult them adequately on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, while France was outraged at losing a lucrative submarine contract with Australia, hours before the US, Britain and Australia do announce an alternative deal to supply nuclear-powered submarines.

But unlike these issues, which are geopolitical and have little impact on people on a daily basis, the travel ban has affected Europeans personally. British newspapers have highlighted the fact that the parents of Emma Raducanu, the Briton who won the US Open tennis tournament, could not travel to New York to watch her play.

“Transatlantic travel is huge,” said Steven Freudmann, president of the Institute of Travel and Tourism, an industry lobby group. “The UK travel industry is very keen to open up to the US as soon as possible and is particularly frustrated because we have opened up to fully vaccinated US citizens for some time.”

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