The White House has announced to lift the travel restrictions for non-immigrants and non-citizens travellers from November 8, 2021, onwards with some norms and guidelines to be followed by them. Here’s what it states:
Vaccination Guidelines:
- The travellers are required to be fully vaccinated with Covaxin and have to show proof of their vaccination before boarding the flight for the US because the US CDC (Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) has paved the way for Covaxin for the travellers coming to the US.
- The CDC has determined that the accepted vaccinations will only include FDA approved or WHO authorised EUL (emergency use listed) vaccines.
- Travellers can only be considered fully vaccinated for more than weeks after the receipt of the first dose of FDA approved/WHO EUL approved first dose series such as Janssen or mix and match of two authorised bodies.
- Citizens with other vaccines that are not approved by the US government or WHO such as Chinese CanSinoBIO’s Ad5-nCoV, Novavax and Serum Institute of India’s NVX-CoV2373, Corovax, Clover Biopharmaceuticals’ SCB-2019 might face issues in entering the US.
Covid-19’s Test Guidelines: The unvaccinated travellers including US citizens, LPRs (lawful permanent residents) or foreign nationals have to undergo some new protocols of testing such as they will need to test within one day of departure to strengthen masking and contact tracing. These are the strict safety protocols that follow science and public health for the safety of people.
Vaccination Proof: The airlines will match the vaccination status of the passengers with their name, date of birth, vaccine product, number of vaccination doses, dates of vaccination, vaccination clinic and health care facility of vaccination for confirmation that the travelling passenger is the same as mentioned on the certificate.
Children Guidelines:
- Children under 18 years of age are excepted from vaccination and are required to have a pre-departure test.
- If an unvaccinated child travels with a fully vaccinated adult, he can get his test done three days before the departure, considering the timelines for accompanying adults.
- If an unvaccinated child travels with an unvaccinated adult, they will have to get their test done within one day of departure.
The US government expects this set of norms to be strictly followed by passengers, exempting the children under 18 years, certain participants of vaccination clinical trials, people with medical contradictions to the vaccine and people travelling with non-tourist visas from countries with lower availability of vaccines.
