Biden Admin Will Lift Travel Ban on 8 African Countries Beginning Dec. 31

The U.S. will lift its ban on travel from South Africa and seven other southern African countries beginning Dec. 31, the White House announced on Friday.

The Biden administration initially restricted travel from South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique, and Malawi to non-citizens or lawful permanent residents, over concerns about the Omicron variant.

However, Omicron has since become the dominant variant in the U.S. and has surged in other parts of the world as well.

White House assistant Press Secretary Kevin Munoz tweeted on Friday that the decision was recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The restrictions gave us time to understand Omicron and we know our existing vaccines work against Omciron, [especially] boosted,” Munoz added.

https://twitter.com/kmunoz46/status/1474373042000195587?s=21

The ban came under criticism, particularly from African leaders, who argued it was unfair given that Omicron had been detected elsewhere, yet those countries did not have restrictions imposed on them.

“The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to, and recover from, the pandemic,” South African President Cyril Ramaphosa said in November.

The first Omicron case in the U.S. was detected two days after the ban went into effect; it occurred in a vaccinated traveler from South Africa who experienced mild symptoms.

President Joe Biden indicated he could lift the ban on Tuesday, telling reporters, “I’m considering reversing, I’m going to talk to my team in the next couple days.”

“Remember why I said we put the travel ban on, is to see how much time we had before it hit here so we could begin to decide what we needed by looking at what was happening in other countries. But we’re past that now and so it’s something that’s being raised with me by the docs and I’ll have an answer for that soon.”

Watch above, via Twitter