White House extends bans on travel, adds South Africa

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, under pressure to speed up the pace of coronavirus vaccination, said Monday that he was now aiming for the United States to administer 1.5 million vaccine doses a day — a goal that is 50% higher than his initial target but one that the nation already appears on track to meet.

The president made his comments just hours after he banned travel by noncitizens into the United States from South Africa because of concern about a coronavirus variant spreading in that country, and moved to extend similar bans imposed by his predecessor on travel from Brazil, Europe and Britain. Those bans were set to expire on Tuesday.

Biden has vowed to get “100 million COVID-19 shots in the arms of the American people” by his 100th day in office. Because two doses are required, and some Americans have already been vaccinated, his promise would cover about 67 million Americans. To realize it, the United States would have to administer 1 million shots a day.

The pace of vaccinations is already picking up, and the United States already seems to be vaccinating well over 1 million people per day, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The current average is about 1.2 million over the past six days.

Biden made his comments days after the United States recorded 25 million total coronavirus cases. The death toll Monday topped 420,000 Americans.

The move to increase the daily vaccination target comes as officials in the new Biden administration are trying to get their hands around a fast-changing pandemic, with public health officials racing to vaccinate the public and to expand the supply of vaccine as more contagious variants of the coronavirus spread.

The variant that is now spreading in South Africa has not yet reached the United States. But on Monday, Minnesota’s Health Department said that a case of a variant from Brazil had been found in the state. Health officials also announced that a case of the variant found in South Africa had been recorded in New Zealand in a returned traveler who had been released from hotel quarantine after twice testing negative. Over two dozen countries have now reported cases of the variant.