Psaki: No time 'to be lifting' travel restrictions

President Joe Biden will sign executive action reinstating COVID-19 travel restrictions on non-U.S. travelers from Brazil and a number of European countries. White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirms South Africa would be added to the list. (Jan. 25)

Video Transcript

JEN PSAKI: The president will sign a presidential proclamation to reduce the spread of COVID-19 through travel, especially as we see faster spreading variants emerging across the world. This proclamation is part of the Biden administration's whole of government decisive and science driven response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Of particular note, on advice of our administration's medical and COVID team, President Biden has decided to maintain the restrictions previously in place for the European Schengen area, the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, and Brazil. With the pandemic worsening and more contagions variant-- contagious variants spreading, this isn't the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel. And in light of the contagious variant, B1351, South Africa has been added to the restricted list.

Additionally, beginning tomorrow international travelers to the United States must provide proof of a negative test within three days of travel to airlines prior to departure.

I wanted to briefly preview the first of our public health briefings, which will begin this Wednesday and will be done regularly for the foreseeable future. These will be science led briefings featuring our public health officials and members of our COVID-19 response team. These briefings will typically happen three times a week to provide the American people with key updates on the virus and our government's response.

- There isn't time for this sort of legislative back and forth.

JEN PSAKI: Well, the president himself has conveyed the urgency of moving this package forward. And that's certainly something he has also conveyed privately to democrats and republicans.

And it's not just him. There's urgency to the American people for this package to move forward because we are going to hit a cliff, an unemployment cliff, unemployment insurance cliff I should say, in March where millions of people won't be able to have access to unemployment insurance. We're going to hit a point where we won't have enough funding for vaccine distribution. Nobody wants to have the conversation, no member of Congress in May or June, when are we don't have the funding to put back-- to reopen schools I should say. So there's an urgency he's conveyed.

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