White House looks at domestic travel restrictions as virus variant surges in Florida
Source: Tampa Bay Times
Two federal government officials underscored that no policy announcements are imminent, and that any move to restrict travel or impose new health measures would be taken in partnership with state and local governments.
The Biden administration is considering whether to impose domestic travel restrictions, including on Florida, fearful that coronavirus mutations are threatening to reverse hard-fought progress on the pandemic.
Outbreaks of the new variants including a highly contagious one first identified in the United Kingdom, as well as others from South Africa and Brazil that scientists worry can evade existing vaccines have lent urgency to a review of potential travel restrictions within the United States, one federal official said.
There are active conversations about what could help mitigate spread here, but we have to follow the data and whats going to work. We did this with South Africa, we did this with Brazil, because we got clear guidance, one White House official said.
But were having conversations about anything that would help mitigate spread, the official said, referring to discussions about new travel restrictions that could target the spread of the U.K. mutation in Florida.
Read more: https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2021/02/11/white-house-looks-at-domestic-travel-restrictions-as-virus-variant-surges-in-florida/
yaesu
(8,020 posts)ostracized, restricted for the good of those who are responsibly fighting the spread.
dem4decades
(11,296 posts)Except for that weekend of football and drunkenness.
Nitram
(22,813 posts)multiply and spread. Because "freedom," you know.
Auggie
(31,173 posts)An inconvenient but (likely) very necessary restriction.
riversedge
(70,242 posts)Gov. Ron DeSantis has kept Floridas economy open even as the virus and its variants spread. Early on in the pandemic, he issued an executive order requiring travelers from New York, Connecticut and New Jersey to isolate for 14 days. He rescinded the order in August.
In response to this report, Meredith Beatrice, a spokeswoman for DeSantis, said the governor opposes travel restrictions and does not believe diagnostic tests should be a prerequisite to domestic air travel.
Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida wrote a letter to Biden saying that travel restrictions on the state would be reckless and economically harmful.