White House plans new system for international travel and contract tracking rules

WASHINGTON, Sept.15 (Reuters) – The United States is developing a “new system for international travel” that will include tracing of contacts when they eventually lift travel restrictions that prevent large parts of the world’s population from entering the country, a senior White House official said on Wednesday.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told the United States Travel and Tourism Advisory Council that the administration is not planning to immediately relax travel restrictions citing cases of the COVID-19 Delta variant in the United States and around the world.

Reuters first reported in early August that the White House was developing entry requirements for vaccines that could cover almost all foreign visitors. The White House had previously confirmed that it was considering imposing vaccines on foreign international visitors.

“The American people must have confidence that the new international travel system is safer even though we – I mean at this point – we will let in more travelers,” Zients said on Wednesday, adding that it would eventually replace existing restrictions. .

“We are considering considering vaccination requirements for foreign nationals traveling to the United States,” Zients said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said at the same meeting that the surge in COVID-19 cases was preventing the lifting of international travel restrictions. “We want to move to a metrics-based system,” said Raimondo. “Before we can do that, we have to deal with the internal situation better, which means that we have to vaccinate everyone.”

Zients said the new plan would replace current restrictions and be “safer, stronger and more durable.” He hasn’t set specific metrics for when the administration could ease restrictions.

“Vaccination rates are important here at home and in other countries,” Zients said, urging travel agencies like airlines to force vaccines on employees quickly.

Some industry officials fear the Biden administration will lift travel restrictions for months or potentially until 2022.

The extraordinary travel restrictions by the United States were first imposed on China in January 2020 to combat the spread of COVID-19. Many more countries were added, most recently India, in May.

The administration wanted to lift travel restrictions “as soon as possible,” Zients said.

CONTACT TRACING

Zients said the new system will include collecting contact tracing data from passengers traveling to the United States to allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to contact travelers if they are exposed to COVID-19.

The Trump administration blocked an effort in 2020 to force airlines to collect contact tracing information from international passengers bound for the United States after some senior administration officials raised privacy concerns.

Zients said he wanted the new system to be “ready to go” when the restrictions can be safely lifted. “We understand the importance of this,” Zients said.

The US is currently banning most non-US citizens who in the past 14 days have been to the UK, Europe’s 26 Schengen countries without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil.

The United States separately prohibits non-essential travel by most non-U.S. Citizens at the U.S. land borders with Mexico and Canada.

Critics say the restrictions no longer make sense as some countries with high rates of COVID-19 infections are not on the restricted list while some countries on the list are controlling the pandemic.

Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernadette Baum and Aurora Ellis

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