Despite expectations that the Covid vaccine mandate for travelers entering the United States would be lifted when the federal government ends the nation’s public health emergency on May 11, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Disease Prevention (CDC) announced Thursday that the policy will be updated instead of dropped.
The updated policy will allow travelers who received at least one dose of the vaccine on or after entering the country on August 16, as the CDC believes many of those who received a dose since that date may have received the vaccine more protective bivalent.
In its update, the CDC said: “Noncitizens who are not immigrants and who seek to enter the United States by air must show proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 before boarding a flight to United States from a foreign country.”
“If you are not fully vaccinated against COVID-19, you will NOT be allowed to board a flight in the United States, unless you meet the criteria for an exemption under the amended CDC Proclamation and Order,” the CDC added. A booster dose is not required to meet this requirement.”
“Because some travelers’ vaccine records may not specify whether recent Moderna or Pfizer doses were bivalent, CDC will consider anyone with a record of a single dose of Moderna or Pfizer vaccine issued after August 16 2022 to comply with the requirements of the amended Order. board a plane to the United States”.
“This date was chosen because it represents the first time travelers may have received a bivalent booster,” the CDC added.
However, the decision makes the United States an outlier internationally, as few countries still require visitors to have received a Covid vaccine to enter, including Angola and Indonesia.
Dr Doug Badger, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the Daily Mail: “Neither the European Union nor Canada imposes this requirement.”
“Vaccines reduce the risk that an infected person will develop severe disease, but they do not prevent transmission,” said Dr. Doug Badger. “The administration should follow the science and rescind this policy.”
So the United States is extending its vaccine mandate for travelers by another month, as experts argue that the bivalent boosters are necessary because they specifically target the Omicron variant. Unlike the original vaccines that targeted the initial Wuhan strain of the virus, scientists argue that the bivalent boosters provide better protection against severe illness and death from strains currently circulating.
However, the move puts the United States at odds with most countries, including the United Kingdom, France and the European Union, which have already eased their vaccination requirements for visitors amid mounting evidence that they are not slowing the spread of the virus. virus China, in line with most of the rest of the world, also does not require travelers to have a Covid vaccine, but they do require a negative Covid test result at least 48 hours before travel.
In addition, there are now much higher levels of immunity in the population from previous vaccinations or infections than in the early days of the pandemic, with about three in four Americans having some level of immunity to Covid, according to a John Hopkins study published. in February last year, and current levels are likely to be even higher.
In March 2022, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky acknowledged that 95% of Americans have at least “some” protection against Covid.
“We also know that in this country because of vaccines because of the boosters and because of the protection from previous diseases, the immunity induced by the infection (natural immunity) that about 95% of the people in this country have some level of protection,” he said.
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine professor Dr. Marty Makary told The Daily Wire that natural immunity is far superior to vaccinated immunity.
“The data on natural immunity is now overwhelming,” Makary said. “It turns out that the hypothesis our public health leaders had that vaccinated immunity is better and stronger than natural immunity was wrong. They got it the other way around. And now we have data from Israel showing that natural immunity is 27 times more effective than vaccinated immunity. And this is supported by 15 other studies.”
However, the Biden administration will continue to enforce the Covid vaccine mandate despite natural immunity and the fact that vaccines do not stop transmission, putting it at odds with the policies of most of the rest of the world .
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