[As they discussed the decision
this week, top health officials warned the White House about uncertainty over
how vaccines might respond to a homegrown virus variant in India.]
By Noah Weiland and Jim Tankersley
The decision was one of the most
significant steps yet taken by the White House in response to the crush
of new infections in India, where over 3,000 people are dying each day as
citizens gasp
for air on the streets. The country
recorded almost 400,000 new coronavirus cases on Thursday alone.
The White House press secretary,
Jen Psaki, said the policy would go into effect on Tuesday. The travel
restrictions will not apply to citizens or lawful permanent residents of the
United States, their spouses or minor children or siblings, or to the parents
of citizens or lawful permanent residents who are under 21.
The surge of the virus in India has
posed a new challenge for Mr. Biden’s pandemic response. President Donald J.
Trump’s decision to issue
restrictions on travel from China early in the pandemic followed days
of fierce debate among national security and public health officials, and was
heavily criticized by Democrats and public health experts, who worried that the
decision would hinder the nascent global response to the new threat.
In retrospect, federal health
officials say the decision was one of the best that Mr. Trump made in the early
weeks of the crisis. But the restrictions proved porous. Tens of thousands of
people still
arrived in the United States on direct flights from China in
the two months after Mr. Trump imposed the limits. Ron Klain, now President
Biden’s chief of staff, criticized the move as an ineffectual “Band-Aid.”
And the panicked flight of
Americans from Europe ahead of a travel ban that Mr. Trump then imposed on the
continent overwhelmed airports in the United States and most likely brought
still more infections.
The Biden administration has to
avoid a repeat of those problems while it tries to rush humanitarian aid to a
country that it counts as an ally.
The India travel restrictions may
prove to be as porous as the China order. Beyond Americans and lawful permanent
residents, exemptions include students, some academics, journalists, fiancés
and immigrants. People may also travel for humanitarian purposes, public
health, national security or to support critical infrastructure.
But Mr. Biden has advantages over
his predecessor, including widespread testing and vaccines. People who are
exempt from the ban must still abide by the guidance the United States has
already put in place for international travelers, including a negative
test for the virus before traveling and again upon entering the country from
India, and they must quarantine if they are not vaccinated.
Other countries, including Britain,
Germany and Italy, have instituted similar restrictions on travel from India.
Early in his presidency, Mr. Biden barred
travel by noncitizens into the United States from South Africa because
of concerns about a coronavirus variant spreading in that country, and he
extended similar bans imposed by Mr. Trump on travel from Brazil and some
European countries.
One senior Biden administration
official said Friday that representatives from the National Security Council as
well as public health officials in the administration had debated the India
move in recent days, though not contentiously. It was recommended by Mr.
Biden’s Covid-19 response team, medical experts and national security aides
across the federal government.
Another senior official familiar
with the decision said that it rested heavily on uncertainty over a homegrown
variant spreading in India known as B.1.617. Doctors and news reports have
cited anecdotal — but inconclusive — evidence to suggest that it is
driving the country’s outbreak.
As federal health officials,
including Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the C.D.C. director, and Dr. Anthony S.
Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, discussed the possible
move in recent days with White House officials, they emphasized that there was
little known about how coronavirus vaccines respond to that variant.
One official said the travel
restrictions could be modified once there was more data on vaccine response.
The move comes amid a deceleration
in American vaccination rates that has complicated the nation’s quest to
protect itself. Even with significant momentum in the government’s vaccination
campaign — the White House announced on Friday that 100 million people in the
United States had been fully vaccinated — a majority of American adults are
still not considered fully protected against the virus.
And in a sign that the government
does not want to ease restrictions too quickly, the Transportation Security
Administration on Friday extended mandates for mask-wearing on airplanes and
public transit through Sept. 13.
Even as cases have ebbed in the
United States, the virus has raged through India, leading to mass
cremations that run through the night. Under intense pressure to do more to
help the ailing nation, the White House announced this week a slate of assistance measures, including sending
vaccine-making materials, rapid tests and a tranche of the antiviral drug
remdesivir, which received Food and Drug Administration approval last year for
treating Covid-19.
In the past 24 hours, military
cargo planes from the United States delivered to India small oxygen cylinders,
large oxygen cylinders, regulators, pulse oximeters, about 184,000 rapid tests,
and about 84,000 N-95 masks, Ms. Psaki said on Friday.
“There is no question that it is a
great tragedy, in terms of the loss of life,” Vice President Kamala Harris, who
is of Indian descent, told reporters on Friday in Cincinnati. “And as I have
said before, and I will say again, we as a country have made a commitment to
the people of India to support them.”
On Monday, the Biden administration
said that it intended to make available to other countries up
to 60 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine — which has not yet
been cleared for use in the United States — so long as federal regulators
deemed the doses safe. The announcement came after Mr. Biden spoke with Prime
Minister Narendra Modi of India and the two pledged to “work closely together
in the fight against Covid-19.”
Several Indian states said this week that they could
not fulfill the government’s directive to expand vaccinations to all adults
beginning on Saturday because
they lacked doses. Only a small fraction of the country has been fully
vaccinated.
Dr. Luciana Borio, the former
director for medical and biodefense preparedness at the National Security
Council, said that if the United States had more effective systems for
quarantining travelers and was further into its vaccination campaign, travel restrictions
like the ones announced on Friday would not be as necessary.
“You can’t battle a pandemic with
travel restrictions, unfortunately, which makes it so important to share
vaccines with the world and implement public health measures before the virus gets
to our shores,” she said.
Experts have long recommended
against restricting travel during outbreaks, arguing that it is often
ineffective and can limit the movements of doctors and other health
professionals trying to contain the disease.
The decision on Friday comes under
drastically different circumstances than those seen in the early weeks of the
public health crisis.
Health officials have a much more
sophisticated understanding of how the virus spreads. Coronavirus tests, which
were in short supply last year when Mr. Trump issued travel restrictions, are
widely available, with results often returned quickly. And three highly
protective vaccines are in broad circulation. Even as health officials grapple
with limited knowledge of the homegrown virus variant in India, those vaccines
appear to be effective against other variants.
Months ago, India appeared to be
escaping the kind of calamity it is now experiencing. After an initial
lockdown, the country did not see an explosion in new cases and deaths comparable
to those in other countries. But after the early restrictions were lifted, many
Indians adopted a more relaxed approach to virus restrictions. Large
gatherings, including
political rallies and religious festivals, resumed and drew millions of
people.
Hospitals in India are now facing
dire shortages of beds, while relatives of the sick have pleaded on social
media for access to them, as well as for oxygen
and medicine. Many Indians say they do not know if they are infected with
the coronavirus because overwhelmed labs have stopped processing tests. One in
five tests are coming back positive, but experts fear the
true toll is much higher.
There is some debate over how to
explain the wave of virus cases, including which variant might be most
responsible. Researchers say that data so far points to a variant that has
spread widely in Britain and in the United States, B.1.1.7, as a significant factor
in the country’s suffering.
Scientists say that different
variants seem to dominate specific parts of India. The B.1.617 variant has been
detected in a large number of samples from the central state of Maharashtra,
while the B.1.1.7 variant is rising quickly in New Delhi.
Zolan
Kanno-Youngs and Linda Qiu contributed reporting.