The White House is planning a new system of rules for tracking contracts and international travel

WASHINGTON, Sept. 15 (Reuters) – The United States is developing a “new system for international travel” that will include tracking contacts for when it eventually lifts travel restrictions that prevent access to much of the world’s population, a senior White House official said Wednesday.

White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients told the U.S. Travel and Tourism Advisory Committee that the administration does not plan to immediately relax any travel restrictions citing cases of COVID-19 Delta variants in the United States and all over the world.

Reuters first reported in early August that the White House was developing vaccine entry requirements that could cover almost all foreign visitors. The White House previously confirmed that it was considering forcing vaccines on foreign international visitors.

“The American people must trust that the new system for international travel will be safer, even as, I mean at the moment, we will let more travelers in,” Zients said Wednesday, adding that it will eventually replace the existing restrictions.

“We are exploring to consider vaccination requirements for foreigners traveling to the United States,” Zients said.

Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said at the same meeting that the rise in COVID-19 cases prevents lifting international travel restrictions. “We want to move to a metrics-based system,” Raimondo said. “Before we can do that, we need to better control the national situation, which forces us to vaccinate everyone.”

Zients said the new plan would replace current restrictions and be “safer, stronger and more sustainable.” He did not set specific metrics for when the administration could relax the restrictions.

“Vaccination rates are important here and in other countries,” Zients said, urging travel companies such as airlines to quickly order employee vaccines.

Some industry officials fear the Biden administration may not be able to lift travel restrictions for months or potentially until 2022.

Extraordinary travel restrictions in the United States were first imposed on China in January 2020 to address the spread of COVID-19. Many other countries have been added, most recently India in May.

The administration wanted to lift travel restrictions “as soon as we can,” Zients said.

CONTACT FOLLOW-UP

Zients said the new system will include the collection of tracking data from contacts of passengers traveling to the United States to allow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to contact travelers if they are exposed to COVID-19.

The Trump administration blocked in 2020 an effort to require airlines to collect tracking information from contacts of international passengers bound for the United States after some senior administration officials mentioned privacy concerns.

Zients said they want the new system to be “ready to continue” when it is safe to lift restrictions. “We have the importance of that,” Zients said.

The United States currently bans the majority of non-US citizens who have been in the United Kingdom for the past 14 days, in the 26 Schengen countries of Europe without border controls, Ireland, China, India, South Africa, Iran and Brazil. .

The United States separately prohibits non-essential travel by most non-US citizens to the U.S. land borders with Mexico and Canada.

Critics say the restrictions no longer make sense because some countries with high rates of COVID-19 infections are not on the restricted list while some countries on the list have the pandemic under control.

Report by David Shepardson Edited by Chizu Nomiyama, Bernadette Baum and Aurora Ellis

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