The
Biden administration said Friday that it would begin restricting travel to the United States from India, where a devastating
coronavirus outbreak is claiming more than 3,000 lives each day.
اضافة اعلان
Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that the move was done on the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and that it would go into effect Tuesday. The travel restrictions will not apply to citizens or lawful permanent residents of the United States, their spouses or minor children or siblings, or to the parents of citizens or lawful permanent residents who are younger than 21 years old.
“The policy will be implemented in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in India,” she said.
Months ago, India appeared to be weathering the pandemic. After a harsh initial lockdown, the country did not see an explosion in new cases and deaths comparable to those in other countries. But after the early restrictions were lifted, many Indians stopped taking precautions. Large gatherings, including political rallies and religious festivals, resumed and drew millions of people.
Doctors and news reports have cited anecdotal — but inconclusive — evidence to suggest that a homegrown variant called B.1.617 is driving the country’s outbreak and that people who have been fully vaccinated are getting sick. But researchers say that data so far suggests that another variant that has spread widely in Britain and the U.S., the highly contagious B.1.1.7, may also be a significant factor.
One in five coronavirus tests are coming back positive in India, but experts fear the true toll is much higher.
Several Indian states said they could not fulfill the government’s directive to expand vaccinations to all adults beginning Saturday because they lacked doses. Only a small fraction of the country has been vaccinated so far.
In the past 24 hours, U.S. military cargo planes began the first deliveries of emergency supplies promised to India by the Biden administration, with shipments of small oxygen cylinders, large oxygen cylinders, regulators, pulse oximeters, about 184,000 rapid diagnostic tests, and about 84,000 N-95 masks, Psaki said Friday.
After President Joe Biden spoke with Prime Minister
Narendra Modi of India, the Biden administration announced Monday that it intended to make up to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine available to other countries, so long as federal regulators deem the doses safe. It was a significant, albeit limited, shift for the White House, which had been reluctant to export excess vaccines in large amounts.
As hospitals face shortages of intensive care beds, relatives of the sick are broadcasting desperate pleas on social media for oxygen, medicine and other scarce supplies. Many Indians say they do not know if they are infected with the coronavirus because overwhelmed labs have stopped processing tests.
Read more Region & World
.jpg)
.jpg)
