US Revokes Covid Vaccination Requirement For International Air Travel

President Joe Biden has issued a proclamation revoking his earlier order requiring most international visitors to the United States to get vaccinated against Covid-19.

Biden also revoked rules imposed in September 2021 requiring all U.S. federal employees and contractors to be vaccinated.

Biden said in the proclamation, “Considering the progress that we have made, and based on the latest guidance from our public health experts, I have determined that we no longer need the international air travel restrictions that I imposed in October 2021.”

Biden issued a Proclamation on October 25, 2021, when new coronavirus variants had emerged globally and his Administration was responding to variants that were more transmissible or caused more severe disease than the original virus strain.

The easing of international air travel restriction will become effective on Friday with the expiration of the U.S. Covid public health emergency.

White House Covid-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said at a news conference on Tuesday that more than 90 percent of federal employees are already vaccinated. “We think those requirements saved thousands of lives but we’re at a different place,” he told reporters.

Separately, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the United States is “definitely at a different point in the pandemic”.

Covid deaths have declined by 95 percent, new Covid-19 hospitalizations are down nearly 88 percent, and Covid cases and deaths globally are at its lowest levels since the start of the pandemic, according to her.

The World Health Organization last week announced that Covid pandemic no longer qualifies as a global health emergency.

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