TRAVEL RULES IN BIDEN’S COVID PLAN
WASHINGTON — Tighter travel rules, free at-home tests and booster shots are key elements of President Joe Biden’s latest strategy to combat the rapidly evolving coronavirus.
Biden said his plan to get through the winter months, which he promoted during a visit to the National Institutes of Health on Thursday, is one that “all Americans hopefully can rally around.”
“My plan I’m announcing today pulls no punches in the fight against COVID-19,” Biden said. “It’s a plan that I think should unite us.”
Biden emphasized that he was not expanding or adding vaccination requirements as the federal courts review his previously announced rules for health care workers and employees of larger companies.
He nodded briefly to efforts by some congressional Republicans to halt federal spending unless Biden repeals the vaccination requirements.
“Some of my friends on the other team are arguing that if I don’t commit that they’ll never be any more mandates, they’re gonna let us default” on the national debt, Biden said. “In the neighborhood I came from in Claymont they’d look at me and say, ‘Go figure.’”
The components of his plan, announced as people begin hunkering down for winter and gathering for the holidays, include:
Requiring travelers entering the country by air to test negative for the coronavirus within a day of departure, regardless of vaccination status or nationality, instead of within three days.
Extending through March 18 the requirement that masks be worn on airplanes, trains and public transportation.
Requiring private health insurance companies to cover 100% of the cost of at-home tests for the coronavirus. Details, such as when this will start, must be worked out.
Launching a public education campaign to encourage 100 million adults to get boosters, with a special focus on seniors.
Biden’s plan was released a day after the first confirmed case of the omicron variant in the USA was announced and as a poll shows rising frustration about the state of COVID-19 vaccinations.