The White House continued to defend its recent travel restrictions imposed on eight African countries due to concerns over the Omicron variant, despite the fact that the variant has now been detected across the world, including multiple cases in the United States.
The restrictions on the African countries, which went into effect earlier this week, were described by UN Secretary-General António Guterres as “travel apartheid” Thursday.
“We are actively monitoring the new variant, addressing the questions that have been raised about transmissibility, severity and vaccine effectiveness, and as we learn more about the variant over the coming days on all of these fronts, decisions on changes to travel policy will be based upon the advice, as they always are, of our health and medical experts,” White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients told reporters Friday.
He continued, “We’ll continue to rely on their expertise regarding how we make sure that we keep the American people safe, and that will directly impact the duration of these travel restrictions.”
The topic has come up at multiple White House press briefings this week. Earlier Friday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden would continue to follow the advice of medical experts still learning more about the Omicron variant.
“We did it on the recommendation of our health and medical experts. If they recommend we lift them, the President will follow their advice,” she said.
On Wednesday, she said the travel restrictions were “not a political decision” but were “intended to give us more time to do the necessary evaluation, data and testing required.”
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday that he hopes the restrictions are “sorted out and lifted” quickly.
“That's a very good question, an important question, and we did struggle with that. But we wanted to see if we could buy time temporarily so I do hope that this gets sorted out and lifted before it has any significant impact on the country,” said Fauci, chief medical adviser to the President.
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December 03, 2021 at 12:02PM
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The latest on the Omicron coronavirus variant: Live updates - cnn.com
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