US to lift travel restrictions on eight African countries

Washington, December 24

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The Biden administration will lift travel restrictions on eight southern African countries imposed last month over concerns about the fast-spreading Covid-19 Omicron variant, the White House said Friday.

Foreign nationals who are barred from the United States because they have been in one of the eight countries within the prior 14 days will again be allowed on US-bound flights leaving after 12:01 a.m. ET on December 31, a senior official said.

The United States on November 29 barred nearly all non-US citizens who had recently been in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi in an “abundance of caution” over the variant detected in South Africa. White House spokesman Kevin Munoz tweeted that Biden “will lift the temporary travel restrictions on Southern Africa countries” effective December 31. He said 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 Omicron,” Munoz tweeted.

Meanwhile, global airline carriers cancelled more than 3,000 flights over the Christmas weekend, the FlightAware website said, as a spike in cases due to Omicron piled on misery for travellers.

The website showed that 2,175 flights around the world had been scrapped on Friday, which is Christmas Eve and a typically heavy day for travel. Around a quarter of those flights were in the US. — Reuters