Covid-19 Updates: White House Will Keep Travel Bans in Place – The New York Times

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We will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point for a few reasons: The more transmissible Delta variant is spreading both here and around the world, driven by the Delta variant cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated and appear likely to continue in the weeks ahead. The C.D.C. just advised Americans against travel to the United Kingdom this past Monday given the surge in cases. They will evaluate and make recommendations based on health data. But I dont have a timeline to predict for you because its all about what success we have at getting more people vaccinated, getting more vaccines out to the world and fighting the virus.

The Biden administration will continue to restrict the entry of Europeans and others into the United States, citing concerns that infected travelers may contribute to further spread of the contagious Delta variant across the country, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said Monday afternoon.

Concern about the variant had convinced officials not to lift the current travel restrictions on foreigners, Ms. Psaki said, some of which had been in place since the beginning of the pandemic. Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the Delta variant.

The more transmissible Delta variant is spreading both here and around the world, she told reporters, adding that cases are rising in the United States, particularly among the unvaccinated.

The decision is a blow to the travel industry, which hoped that a lifting of the travel bans could increase tourism for the remaining summer months, helping hotels, airlines and other businesses that have been struggling.

But Ms. Psaki said that it was unclear when the United States would remove the bans completely.

I dont have a timeline to predict for you because its all about what success we have at getting more people vaccinated, getting more vaccines out to the world and fighting the virus, she said.

The United States began restricting travel from foreigners in January 2020, when former President Donald J. Trump restricted some travel from China in the hopes of preventing the spread of the virus. That effort largely failed.

But health officials pressed the Trump administration to expand travel bans to much of Europe during the first surge of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and more countries have been added to the ban as the original virus and several variants have spread rapidly from country to country.

The Trump administration also used a public health authority known as Title 42 to effectively shut down the southern border to entry, citing worries that immigrants crossing on foot could bring the virus into the country. The Biden administration stopped enforcing the rule for unaccompanied children crossing the border alone and for some families.

But Ms. Psaki said that the Title 42 restrictions, like the other travel bans, would remain for the time being.

We have never conveyed or announced a timeline for Title 42, she said. So nothing has changed in that regard, it remains in place, and it will remain in place as long as that is the guidance from our health and medical experts.

WASHINGTON The Department of Veterans Affairs will require 115,000 of its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the next two months, making it the first federal agency to mandate that employees be inoculated, government officials said on Monday.

The move comes as concern is growing that the substantial portion of the population that has not been vaccinated is contributing to the rapid spread of the highly contagious Delta variant. While it was a sharp departure from the Biden administrations reluctance to embrace mandates, it was part of a broader shift in which New York City, many hospital chains and some private employers are deciding that the time has come to make being vaccinated a requirement.

I am doing this because its the best way to keep our veterans safe, full stop, Denis McDonough, the secretary of veterans affairs, said in a telephone interview on Monday. The department is one of the largest federal employers and is the biggest integrated health care system in the country.

The mandate will apply to workers who are the most patient-facing, Mr. McDonough said, including doctors, dentists, registered nurses, physician assistant and some specialists. Beginning on Wednesday, those health care workers will have eight weeks to get fully vaccinated or face penalties including possible removal, he said.

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On Sept. 13, the entire city workforce will be mandated under the Covid safety mandate to either get vaccinated, which is far preferable, or get tested once a week. September is the pivot point of the recovery. September is when many employers are bringing back a lot of their employees. September is when school starts full strength. September is when people come back from the summer. September is when it will all happen. And so on Sept. 13, which is the first full day of school, every single city employee will be expected to be either vaccinated or be tested weekly. This means everybody. This means, obviously, everyone who works in our schools, our educators and staffs staff it means the N.Y.P.D., the F.D.N.Y., it means all city agencies. It means people who work in offices and people work on the front line, everyone. So were going to keep climbing this ladder and adding additional measures as needed mandates and strong measures whenever needed to fight the Delta variant. No. 1 way to fight it is get vaccinated. Were proving it. This is the reason life is as good as it is in New York City, right now, because were above the national average in vaccinations. But we need to do more. We have to take seriously, if someones unvaccinated, unfortunately, they pose a threat to themselves, but they also have a greater chance of spreading the disease.

The drive to get Americans vaccinated accelerated on Monday when the most populous state and largest city in the United States announced that they would require their employees to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, or face frequent tests.

All municipal employees in New York City, including police officers and teachers, and all state employees and on-site public and private health care workers in California will have to be vaccinated or face at least weekly testing.

The Department of Veterans Affairs on Monday also became the first federal agency to mandate that some of its employees get inoculated.

The mandates are the most dramatic response yet to the lagging pace of vaccinations around the country in the face of the highly contagious Delta variant, which is tearing through communities with low rates of vaccination and creating what federal health officials have called a pandemic of the unvaccinated.

Vaccines remain effective against the worst outcomes of Covid-19, including from the Delta variant, but only 49 percent of people in the United States are fully vaccinated, according to federal data.

Misinformation and skepticism have dogged the vaccine rollout, too, and in recent weeks new coronavirus infections and hospitalizations have risen, with a fourfold increase in new cases per day over the last month.

But both indicators, as well as new deaths, remain well below their winter peaks. Cities, private employers and other institutions have been grappling with whether to require vaccines to help get more people vaccinated.

Nearly 60 major medical associations, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, signed a joint statement on Monday calling for the mandatory vaccination of health care workers that described inoculation as the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health care workers.

Hospitals and health care systems like NewYork-Presbyterian and Trinity Health have already announced vaccine mandates, in some cases touching off union protests. The National Football League recently announced it could penalize teams with players who do not get vaccinated. Delta Air Lines will require new employees to be vaccinated, but not its current workers. And last week a federal judge ruled that Indiana University could require vaccinations for students and staff members.

New York City will require its roughly 340,000 municipal workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus by the time schools reopen in mid-September or face weekly testing, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Enforcing the testing requirement there could be complicated, since the more than two dozen unions that represent municipal employees could take issue with the rule.

Mr. de Blasio said the new measures were first steps and that more would follow, and he reiterated a call to private employers to set vaccine mandates for their workers.

Right now we are leading by example, the mayor said. A lot of times, thats what private sector employers say thats what they need.

In California, where 75 percent of the eligible population has received at least one vaccine dose, the new requirement will apply to roughly 246,000 state employees and many more health care workers in the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

Everyone that can get vaccinated should, Mr. Newsom said on Twitter.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York avoided supporting a statewide measure like Mr. Newsoms and argued most public-facing employees are municipal, not state workers, suggesting mandates were more of a question for localities.

Mr. Newsom blamed misinformation for the pandemics persistence, slamming in particular Republican members of Congress and Fox News pundits who have questioned vaccines.

We are exhausted respectfully, exhausted by the ideological prism that too many Americans are living under, he said. We are exhausted by the right-wing echo chamber that has been perpetuating misinformation around the vaccine and its efficacy and safety.

On Monday, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said vaccine mandates are meant to keep Americans safe, but she distanced the federal governments vaccination efforts from such requirements, reinforcing comments she made last week that mandates were decisions best left to private sector companies, institutions and local communities.

We are not going to judge our success here by whether we score political points, she said on Monday. We are going to judge it by whether we are able to save more lives, and if the health and medical experts suggest thats the right way to go then we will support that.

Eliza Shapiro contributed reporting.

As coronavirus infections rise in the United States, concern is mounting among officials and health experts that a surge of cases could devastate unvaccinated populations and push some communities back into the types of lockdowns imposed at the peaks of the pandemic.

Although case numbers are still a fraction of what they were in the worst months, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert, told CNN on Sunday that the country was going in the wrong direction. And it is not just Dr. Fauci. Gov. Kay Ivey of Alabama, a Republican, told reporters last week that unvaccinated Americans are letting us down.

On Monday, U.S. officials matched the growing concern with steps aimed at controlling travel to and from the United States to stem the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

The Biden administration said it would continue to restrict the entry of Europeans and others into the country, citing concerns that infected travelers could contribute to Deltas spread. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to avoid traveling to Spain and Portugal, saying that as cases rise in both countries, even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants.

Spain and Portugal reopened their borders to American tourists in June. But over the past two weeks, there has been a 74 percent increase in new cases in Spain and an 18 percent rise in Portugal, according to New York Times data.

Last week, the C.D.C. put out a similar Level 4 travel notice the highest warning it issues for Britain. Almost all Covid restrictions have been lifted in England, and case numbers have been high.

Restrictions on travel from Europe and other parts of the world to the United States will remain in place, Jen Psaki, the White House press secretary, said on Monday afternoon, adding that she had no information on when the travel bans would be lifted.

I dont have a timeline to predict for you, because its all about what success we have at getting more people vaccinated, getting more vaccines out to the world and fighting the virus, she said.

The U.S. government began restricting travel from foreigners in January 2020, when President Donald J. Trump blocked some travel from China in the hopes of preventing the spread of the virus. That effort largely failed. But health officials pressed the Trump administration to expand travel bans to much of Europe during the first surge of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, and more countries have been added to the ban as the virus and variants have spread.

Controlling travel in and out of the country is proving to be less daunting for U.S. officials than other problems in the pandemic. Misinformation continues to undermine efforts to persuade people that the vaccines are safe, with wildly inaccurate claims of the health risks thriving in some corners of the internet.

In Louisiana, where the vaccination rate is just over 45 percent, according to New York Times data among the lowest in the United States public health workers are going door-to-door to counter the claims. As mass vaccination sites have closed, health workers are trying to persuade people who are hesitant, and people who outright refuse, to get the shots.

Some jurisdictions are adopting more aggressive tactics, such as insisting that employees be vaccinated. U.S. officials said on Monday that the Department of Veterans Affairs would require 115,000 of its frontline health care workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus in the next two months, making it the first federal agency to issue such a mandate.

In New York City, all municipal employees, including police officers and teachers, will have to be vaccinated or face at least weekly testing. Similar rules will apply to state employees and on-site public and private health care workers in California.

Such steps could become more prevalent if the virus continues to spread through unvaccinated populations. Dr. Joseph Kanter, the top health official in Louisiana, lamented that his state had become the leading edge of the Delta surge, adding: We lost all the progress we had made.

California will require all state employees and on-site public and private health care workers to be vaccinated or face at least weekly testing, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Monday.

This is a requirement, to prove youve been vaccinated and if you have not, you will be tested, Mr. Newsom said.

The California move came a few hours after Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City announced a similar vaccine mandate for all municipal workers, to take effect by the time schools reopen in mid-September. Last week, Mr. de Blasio announced a vaccine requirement for public health care workers part of an effort to speed up vaccinations as the city faces a third wave of coronavirus cases driven by the spread of the Delta variant.

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246,000 Californians are state employees, 246,000 Californians should be vaccinated. And if theyre not vaccinated, and cannot verify that theyve been vaccinated, we are requiring that they get tested. California is committed to vaccination verification and/or testing on a weekly basis. Were not stopping just with state employees today. Were also announcing partnerships that include those like Kaiser private sector, now stepping up, organizations representing physicians and dentists, dialysis clinics, stepping up. Private-sector clinics are committing to the same. And we hope this example of public and private leadership as it relates to vaccine verifications, vaccine mandates and/or mandated testing one to two times a week with also commensurate P.P.P., or rather P.P.E., obligations as it relates to protective gear N95 respirator masks as an example will lead to others to replicate this example, in the private sector.

State and local officials, businesses and residents across the country are grappling with whether vaccines should be mandated. The city of San Francisco, several Bay Area counties, the University of California and various hospital systems around the country have recently announced similar mandates.

The new requirement will apply to roughly 246,000 state employees and many more health care workers in the state, Mr. Newsom said. State departments will be expected to begin verifying the vaccination status of all state employees by Aug. 2, while the verification program for health care workers will go into effect on Aug. 9 and by no later than Aug. 23.

More than 64 percent of California residents have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to federal data, but the speed of inoculations has slowed. The number of virus cases in California has risen to more than 6,300 on average per day, more than double the daily average two weeks ago.

A group of nearly 60 major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Nurses Association, called on Monday for mandatory vaccination of health care workers. As the highly contagious Delta variant drives a new surge of coronavirus cases, vaccination is an ethical obligation for health care workers, the groups said in a joint statement.

The statement said that all health care and long-term care employers should require their workers to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. This is the logical fulfillment of the ethical commitment of all health care workers to put patients as well as residents of long-term care facilities first and take all steps necessary to ensure their health and well-being, the statement said.

The document was signed by a wide array of professional associations, including those representing doctors, nurses, pharmacists and infectious disease experts. It said that exceptions could be made for the small subset of employees who are unable to be vaccinated for medical reasons.

In recent weeks, more hospitals and health care systems have announced that they would begin employees to be vaccinated. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has said that the mandates are legal, and many hospitals already require employees to get flu shots.

Health care organizations rarely agree on anything, but this is one thing where they are speaking with one voice and unanimity, said Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist and bioethicist at the University of Pennsylvania, who organized the joint statement. I think that attests to the wide recognition that this is the right thing to do for this country.

Although many health care workers have been eligible for vaccination since December, when the first shots were authorized, a significant number remain unvaccinated.

In New York, for instance, roughly 1 in 4 hospital workers have not yet been vaccinated, according to state data. Nationwide, just 58.7 percent of nursing home employees have been fully vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some health care workers have pushed back against vaccine requirements. A small group of employees sued Houston Methodist Hospital over its mandate. The suit was dismissed last month, and more than 150 workers at the hospital were fired or resigned over their refusal to be vaccinated.

Some employers have been reluctant to require the vaccines, which currently have an emergency use authorization, until they receive full approval from the Food and Drug Administration. That approval is expected, but could be months away.

But the joint statement noted that the Covid-19 vaccines have a good track record so far. We know the vaccines are safe and highly effective at preventing severe illness and death from Covid-19, Dr. Susan R. Bailey, the immediate past president of the A.M.A., said in a statement.

At the urging of federal regulators, two coronavirus vaccine makers are expanding the size of their clinical trials for children ages 5 to 11 a precautionary measure designed to detect rare side effects including heart inflammation problems that turned up in vaccinated people younger than 30.

President Biden promised at a meeting in Ohio last week that emergency clearance for pediatric vaccines would come soon, but the White House has not been specific on the timeline. It was unclear whether expanding the studies will affect when vaccines could be authorized for children.

The Food and Drug Administration has indicated to Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna that the size and scope of their pediatric studies, as initially envisioned, were inadequate to detect rare side effects. Those include myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, inflammation of the lining around the heart, multiple people familiar with the trials said.

Questions about vaccinating children including those under 12 are of huge interest to parents and teachers. Regulators will be required to balance potential side effects of coronavirus vaccination against the risks of Covid-19.

Members of a C.D.C. advisory committee have said that the benefits of shots for people older than 12 greatly outweigh the risks, including of heart problems.

The F.D.A. has asked the companies to include 3,000 children in the 5-to-11-year-old group, the group for whom results were expected first, according to people familiar with the situation. One of the people, granted anonymity to speak freely, described that figure as double the original number of study participants.

A spokesman for Moderna, Ray Jordan, confirmed that the company intends to expand its trial to enroll a larger safety database which increases the likelihood of detecting rarer events and expects to seek emergency authorization late this year or early next year.

The Moderna trial began recruiting patients in March with the aim of enrolling 6,795 participants younger than 12. The participants were to be split equally into three age brackets, including a 6 to 11 year old group, of 2,265 participants each. Mr. Jordan said the company is actively discussing a proposal with the F.D.A. to expand the trial.

Pfizer is on a faster timetable than Moderna, and may be able to meet the F.D.A.s expectations on a bigger trial size and still file a request to expand emergency authorization of its vaccine by the end of September. Reviewing all the safety and efficacy data will likely take regulators at least a few weeks.

Pfizer has previously said it expects to have results for the 5-to-11-year-old group in September, with results for children aged 2 to 5 shortly after that. Results for the youngest children 6 months to 2 years old are expected in October or November. A spokeswoman said Monday that the company had no updates on its timetable.

In June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published data showing that the two vaccines may have caused myocarditis and pericarditis in more than 1,200 Americans, including about 500 who were younger than 30. The symptoms typically appeared within two weeks and were more common in young men and boys.

The rate was low: Fewer than 13 cases per one million second doses administered. Most cases were mild and quickly cleared up, the researchers said.

Dr. Paul A. Offit, an infectious disease specialist who previously served on the C.D.C.s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, noted that infection with the coronavirus also carries a risk and delays in authorizing vaccines because of expanded trials might also put children at risk. Theres always a human price to pay for knowledge, he said.

The F.D.A. authorized the Pfizer vaccine on an emergency basis for children ages 12 to 15 in April; the Moderna vaccine has been cleared only for people 18 and older. The agency attached a warning about potential heart problems to the fact sheets of the vaccines in June.

Many public health experts argue that, with so much attention focused on hospitalizations and deaths among older Americans infected with the coronavirus, the risk for children has been overlooked.

More than four million American children and adolescents have tested positive for the virus since the onset of the pandemic, the American Academy of Pediatrics reported last week. Of those, at least 346 have died.

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Thirty-one years ago, after its passage, many Americans have never lived in a world without the A.D.A. Generations have grown up not knowing a time before it existed, but many of us can still recall in America, where a person with a disability was denied service in restaurants and grocery stores, and could be, where a person using a wheelchair couldnt ride in a train or take a bus to work or to school, or an employer could refuse to hire you because of a disability an America that wasnt built for all Americans. Then we passed the A.D.A., and made a commitment to build a nation for all of us, all of us. For more than 60 million Americans living with disabilities, the A.D.A. is so much more than a law. Its a source of opportunity, participation, independent living and respect and dignity, the bulwark against discrimination and a path to independence. Im proud to announce a new effort, the first of its kind, to help Americans grappling with long-term effects of Covid-19 that doctors call long Covid. Many Americans who seemingly recover from the virus still face lingering challenges like breathing problems, brain fog, chronic pain and fatigue. These conditions can sometimes can sometimes rise to the level of a disability. So were bringing agencies together to make sure Americans with long Covid who have a disability have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law.

Americans suffering from long Covid a term referring to new or ongoing health problems from a coronavirus infection that occurred weeks or months ago will have access to the benefits and protection provided under federal disability law, President Biden said on Monday.

Speaking in the Rose Garden to celebrate the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Mr. Biden listed some of the lingering effects that have been seen in coronavirus survivors, including breathing problems, brain fog, chronic pain or fatigue, and noted that the effects sometimes rise to the level of a disability.

We are bringing agencies together to make sure Americans with long Covid, who have a disability, have access to the rights and resources that are due under the disability law, Mr. Biden said, noting that they would include special accommodations and services in the workplace, in schools and in the health care system.

In some cases, the health effects of Covid-19 can persist for months after initially causing only mild symptoms. A study published in April found that a coronavirus infection also appears to increase the risk of death and chronic medical conditions afterward, even in people who were never sick enough with the virus to be hospitalized.

The research, based on records of patients in the Department of Veterans Affairs health system, also found that non-hospitalized Covid survivors had a 20 percent greater chance of needing outpatient medical care in the six months following infection than did people who had not contracted the coronavirus.

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Covid-19 Updates: White House Will Keep Travel Bans in Place - The New York Times