WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, (Xinhua) — U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s spokesperson on Monday dismissed outgoing President Donald Trump’s plan to lift travel restrictions on much of Europe and Brazil starting from Jan. 26.
The outgoing President said in a proclamation that the travel restrictions imposed on the Schengen area of Europe, Britain, Ireland and Brazil would be terminated effective on Jan. 26, the same day that the United States requires all travelers to test negative for COVID-19 before flying to the country.
Biden’s team, however, said it had no plan to remove these restrictions. “With the pandemic worsening, and more contagious variants emerging around the world, this is not the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” Biden’s spokesperson Jen Psaki tweeted.
“On the advice of our medical team, the administration does not intend to lift these restrictions on 1/26.
In fact, we plan to strengthen public health measures around international travel in order to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” she added.
The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 24 million on Monday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.
GNA