A United States ban imposed on several southern African nations, including South Africa where the Covid-19 omicron variant was first detected, will be lifted next week, according to a White House official on Saturday.
“The restrictions gave us time to understand omicron and we now know that our existing vaccines work against the omicron variant, especially when boosted,” Kevin Munoz, the White House assistant press secretary, said on Twitter.
Munoz said the travel ban would be lifted on 31 December.
The White House official admitted that omicron was now present across the US and globally, and a ban on international travelers from the eight affected countries would not have a significant impact on his country’s cases.
“During the travel pause, President (Joe) Biden reduced the time for pre-departure testing to one day opposed to three days. Travelers from these eight countries will be subject to these same strict protocols,” the official said in lifting the ban.
Countries around the world restricted travel from southern Africa after the variant was detected in South Africa, which reported it to the World Health Organisation on 24 November, and the UN body subsequently named the variant omicron.
WHO and the UN spoke out against the “travel apartheid” ban, and officials in South Africa said they were being punished for identifying the strain and being transparent.
The UK, which led the ban on the African countries, has since lifted these countries from their red list following its inclusion of Nigeria which immediately banned all UK flights to Abuja.
There has been no reaction from the South African authorities to the lifting of the ban, which they had described as “punishing us for excellent work of our scientists.”
The ban applied to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Mozambique and Malawi.
NM/as/APA