Starting this Monday, a negative COVID-19 test will be required for all international travelers.
People traveling to the United States, regardless of their nationality or vaccination status, must get it
one day before flying.
And foreigners must be vaccinated to enter the country.
For the first time in two months, there was an average of 100,000 coronavirus cases a day, a week after Thanksgiving trips.
On Saturday the weekly average was more than 120,000 cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
While deaths exceeded 1,650 a day, a figure that had not been seen in more than a month.
[Biden announces new measures against COVID-19 to stop the omicron variant]
Likewise, the health authorities ruled out restrictions on domestic flights despite the
dominance of the delta variant.
In fact, this and not the omicron is responsible for the cases of COVID-19 having increased again in the country.
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"I know that the news is focused on the omicron variant, but we must remember that
99.9% of the cases that exist right now in the country are of the delta variant
,
"
said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for the Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[The risk of reinfection is 3 times higher with the omicron variant but existing vaccines protect against severe symptoms]
The omicron variant has so far been detected in at least 15 states: Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin.
Early indications suggest that it
may be less dangerous than the delta variant.
"So far, it doesn't seem like it has a great degree of severity," Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's top medical adviser, told CNN on Sunday.
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"But we really have to be careful before making any determination that it is less serious or does not really cause any serious disease, comparable to delta," he added.
Fauci noted that
the government is considering lifting travel restrictions
against non-citizens entering the United States from various
African countries,
which were imposed when the omicron variant was detected in the region.
The UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, criticized these measures as "travel apartheid."
[The omicron variant of the coronavirus spreads up to three times faster than delta]
Despite the fact that scientists assure that it will take about two weeks to know more about the real risk and its transmissibility, they insist that it
is essential to get vaccinated.
The country is approaching 200,000 fully vaccinated people, according to the CDC.