Indians need to be vaccinated to travel to US
WASHINGTON/BEIJING: Indians planning to undertake air-travel to the US starting November 8 are required to be fully vaccinated under a new protocol released by the Biden administration on Monday for all incoming non-citizen and non-immigrant international travellers.
Children under-18 will be exempted as are participants in clinical trials, people with certain contraindications to the vaccine and those in need to travel in emergency or for humanitarian reason, which will have to be certified by the US government. They will still have to undergo tests for Covid-19, except children below 2.
The onus for implementing the new travel rules, which were announced earlier but are now been operationalised, will be on airlines bringing travellers to the United States, much in the same fashion as the mandatory testing requirement they have been enforcing.
“We’re taking an important step forward in operationalising this new system as it relates to international air travel by releasing a series of documents that will help airlines and travellers get ready for November 8 and ensure a smooth transition to the new system,” a senior Biden administration official said.
China locks down city China placed a city of four million people under lockdown on Tuesday, ordering them not to leave home except in emergencies, in a bid to eradicate a Covid cluster of just a few dozen confirmed cases.
Tuesday’s fresh restrictions came as China reported 29 new domestic infections - including six in Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu province in the country’s northwest. The latest outbreak has been linked to the highly contagious Delta variant, with the tally hitting 198 since October 17. Thirty-nine have been in Lanzhou.