US will not lift travel restrictions due to concern over Delta variant: White House

The US White House intends to maintain existing Coronavirus travel restrictions due to the recent spike in the COVID-19 cases driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. "We will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point for a few reasons. The more transmissible Delta variant is spreading both here and around the world,” she told a daily white house briefing on July 26. Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and appear likely to continue in the weeks ahead," Psaki told reporters. 

US president Joe Biden has been getting appeals from the ally countries to lift pandemic-era restrictions, but the United States has no plans to lift travel restrictions at this point, according to the White House official statement. "For any of these recommendations, we are always going to be guided by our North Star, and that is the (US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and our health and medical experts," Psaki said. She continued, "It would be actually surprising and odd if our health and medical experts were not having an active discussion about how to best protect the American people.” Furthermore, she cited a CDC advisory that restricted air travel to the United Kingdom (UK). 

“There’s, of course, an active discussion about a range of steps that can be taken, as there has been from the first day this administration. Certainly, the surge in cases among unvaccinated because of the Delta variant prompts even more discussion about what actions can be taken,” Biden’s press secretary Psaki said at a White House briefing Monday about the US travel ban on other countries. 

Several US states reinstate mask mandate 

Earlier, citing the drastic rise in the COVID-19 cases across several states in the US, White House chief medical adviser, Dr Anthony Fauci stated that the top US health officials were in discussion about bringing back the mask mandate for the fully vaccinated population. “This is under active consideration,” Fauci while speaking to the State of the Union, added that the state governors can instate their own rules in accordance with the current guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). 

In at least 50 states and Washington DC, COVID-19 cases have been on the rise after briefly dipping due to a rigorous vaccination campaign. Los Angeles County and St Louis, Missouri, and several other states made that call and reinstated the indoor mask requirements. US President, Joe Biden has been confronting worsening reality as the rate of hospitalization surged among the ‘vaccine hesitance’ unvaccinated population.