US President-elect Joe Biden‘s spokeswoman shortly dismissed Donald Trump‘s announcement Monday {that a} COVID-19 ban on travellers arriving from a lot of Europe and Brazil can be lifted, underlining the fractious transition of energy.
“On the recommendation of our medical workforce, the Administration doesn’t intend to raise these restrictions on 1/26,” tweeted Jen Psaki, Mr Biden‘s press secretary.
“In reality, we plan to strengthen public well being measures round worldwide journey to be able to additional mitigate the unfold of COVID-19.”
“With the pandemic worsening, and extra contagious variants rising all over the world, this isn’t the time to be lifting restrictions on worldwide journey,” she added.
Simply minutes previous to Ms Psaki’s tweet, Mr Trump mentioned in an announcement he would raise the journey ban on Europe and Brazil, though journey bans for China and Iran would stay in place.
“This motion is the easiest way to proceed defending Individuals from COVID-19 whereas enabling journey to renew safely,” he mentioned in an announcement launched by the White Home.
Mr Trump had introduced an preliminary ban on 31 January, 2020 on non-American travellers coming into from China to cease the unfold of the coronavirus. The ban was prolonged to European nations on 14 March.
Each statements come days after the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention introduced that each one air passengers certain for the US are required to check unfavourable for COVID-19 inside three days of their departure.
Mr Biden might be inaugurated on Wednesday, after a rocky handover of energy.
Mr Trump for months had refused to simply accept the result of the three November election, baselessly insisting the vote had been rigged and ignoring court docket rulings on the contrary.
He denied Mr Biden‘s workforce entry to funds and sources and has not met with him, as is customary in presidential transitions.
Mr Trump can also be set to turn out to be the primary outgoing president in 152 years to not be a part of his successor on the inauguration ceremony.
As of Monday, the US had recorded greater than 24 million instances of COVID-19, with practically 400,000 deaths.
