US in coronavirus ‘nosedive’ as Joe Biden reinstates travel bans
- Travel restrictions impact EU, Britain, Ireland, Brazil and South Africa
- Biden’s top health nominee likens pandemic in US to ‘plane in a nosedive’
US President Joe Biden will reimpose a Covid-19 travel ban on most non-US citizens who have been in Britain, Brazil, Ireland and much of Europe, a White House official said Sunday, as the new administration ramps up its pandemic response.
Biden will also on Monday extend the ban to travellers who have recently been to South Africa amid warnings that new, more transmissible coronavirus variants are already establishing themselves in the United States, the official said, confirming US media reports.
The new president last week tightened mask wearing rules and ordered quarantine for people flying into the United States, as he seeks to tackle the country’s worsening coronavirus crisis.
Biden has said that the Covid-19 death toll would likely rise from 420,000 to half a million next month – and that drastic action was needed.
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“We’re in a national emergency. It’s time we treated it like one,” he said on Thursday.