The Trump administration enacted new travel restrictions this week that, as of Monday, will reduce the number of travelers entering the U.S. from Britain in an effort to prevent the spread of a coronavirus strain that health officials believe to be more contagious.
The new federal government travel guidelines, designed to prevent the spread of a COVID-19 strain identified in the UK, will require travelers entering the United States from Britain to report negative results for COVID-19 within 72 hours of your planned departure.
“Viruses are constantly changing through mutation, and preliminary analysis in the UK suggests that this new variant may be up to 70% more transmissible than the variants that were circulating previously.” said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a statement on Thursday.
While some airlines have already instituted similar policies, such as those traveling from London to New York, all airlines will now be forced to verify that passengers have tested negative within the required time when entering anywhere in the U.S., reports AP. Travelers who refuse to provide proof of a negative COVID-19 test in the past 72 hours must be denied boarding.
“This new order is consistent with measures that have been taken so far to increase our ability to proactively and aggressively detect and contain COVID-19,” said the CDC.
Vaccine scientists believe that existing COVID-19 vaccines will still be effective against the new SARS-CoV-2 strain.
“I don’t think there was a single variant that would be resistant to the virus – the vaccine,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a leading physician in Operation Warp Speed, told CNN last week. “We cannot exclude it, but it does not exist now. And this particular variant in the UK, I think, is very unlikely to have escaped immunity from the vaccine.
But with the vaccine still in its infancy, the arrival of a more contagious strain could give the virus a chance to spread further before the COVID-19 vaccines become widely available. (The United States currently claims that it will have enough COVID-19 vaccines for 200 million Americans to receive a two-dose regimen by the end of July 2021.)
The new SARS-CoV-2 strain has already been identified in cases in other countries, including France, Spain and Canada. On Friday, Japanese health officials identified the strain in people arriving by plane and also recently discovered the strain in a man who recently visited the UK, according to Reuters.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced a policy whereby all UK travelers will receive a personal visit from the sheriff’s deputy reminding them to follow quarantine orders. If they refuse to quarantine, said the mayor of New York, “they will be penalized. We cannot take any chances with anyone who travels, especially people who travel from the UK ”
The penalty for breaking the quarantine order is $ 1,000, plus an additional $ 1,000 fine for each extra day a person spends violating the order.
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