Travelers must pass virus test to enter U.S.
Biden plans: Masks in Yosemite, 1 million inoculations per day
People flying into San Francisco International Airport and other U.S. airports from abroad will have to test negative for the coronavirus within three days of departure, under an aggressive plan President Biden announced on Thursday as part of a national strategy to contain the spread of COVID19.
The order will take effect Tuesday and replace an order that required testing only for flights from the United Kingdom, where a highly contagious variant of the coronavirus has been circulating.
Arriving international travelers will also have to quarantine — something California already requires.
Visitors to Yosemite National Park will be required to wear masks and stay 6 feet from others, after an executive order signed by Biden requiring masks be worn on federal property. Previously, maskwearing had only been encouraged in Yosemite.
At a press briefing Thursday, Biden reiterated his intent to scale up the availability of vaccines and supplies by using wartime production models; provide schools with clear guidance and resources for reopening; and provide
clear communication on the state of the pandemic.
“Let me be clear. We didn’t get into this mess overnight, and it’s going to take months for us to turn things around,” Biden said. “But let me be equally clear. We will get through this. We will defeat this pandemic.”
An energized Dr. Anthony Fauci, in his first White House briefing as President Biden’s medical adviser, said Thursday that the nation is still in a “difficult situation” with coronavirus deaths, hospitalizations and infections but sevenday averages are improving.
However, the administration expects the cumulative death toll from the pandemic to reach 500,000 by next month.
Fauci told reporters Thursday that the Biden administration is stressing that its coronavirus policy must be “completely open, transparent and honest,” including admitting mistakes and having “everything based on science and evidence.”
He said President Biden himself had underscored that in a meeting with Fauci just 15 minutes earlier.
“It is a somewhat liberating feeling,” he laughed when asked about the difference from the Trump administration, where he said some statements were “not based on scientific fact.” Former President Donald Trump effectively sidelined Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert.
Fauci said Thursday that a South African mutation of the virus, which has caused concern as to whether it might partly evade a vaccine, has not yet appeared to his knowledge in the United States.
A different, highly contagious strain from Great Britain has been found in the U.S.
“You are going to get more cases. You are going to get more deaths,” he said.
With the South African and another variant from Brazil, he said, “What we likely will be seeing is a diminution in what would be the efficacy of the vaccineinduced antibody.”
Fauci said that does not mean vaccines will not be effective, because “even though it’s diminished somewhat, it’s still effective.”
Variants underscore the need to vaccinate as many people as possible, he concluded.
Fauci said he is concerned about “getting the people who have vaccine hesitancy vaccinated. We need to do good outreach on that.”
He aims to get 85% of the population vaccinated by the summer.
The looming question is whether the Biden administration can change the course of the rocky vaccine rollout. The administration plans to deliver 100 million vaccine shots in Biden’s first 100 days in office, and Biden exuded confidence.
“This will be one of the greatest operational challenges our nation has ever faced,” he said at the Thursday briefing. “We will get it done.”
In California, a bit of good news came late Wednesday when the state announced that a batch of 330,000 Moderna vaccines that had already been distributed are safe to use.
The vaccines were linked to a cluster of allergic reactions in San Diego; a summary of the findings of a safety review group showed that at least one of the people who had allergic reactions developed angioedema, or swelling, that was not lifethreatening.
But the safety group did not reach any conclusions about why this reaction occurred in vaccine recipients at this one site and not others.
“Anaphylaxis was not confirmed in any of them and none experienced a lifethreatening adverse event following administration of the vaccine,” according to the summary. “No reason was identified as to why these adverse events occurred at that vaccine administration site on those dates.”
Counties and providers rushed to use the batch of Moderna vaccines, whose use had been paused on Sunday. Santa Clara County said the state’s announcement freed up about 22,000 doses. San Francisco also could proceed with the use of 8,000 Moderna vaccines.
But the supply crunch remains acute. In San Francisco, city officials plan to open a vaccination site at City College on Friday. But in a message posted to Twitter, the city’s department of emergency management urged people without appointments to stay away “due to lack of vaccine supply.”
Sonoma County has vaccinated 23,787 people, nearly 6% of adults, Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said Thursday. The county has 102,000 people older than 65 and is ramping up vaccination sites.
However, “We don’t have anywhere close to what we need to vaccinate residents at the speed we want to,” Hopkins said.