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| US President Joe Biden is announcing a raft of measures to fight Covid-19 (Photo by=AFP/MANDEL NGAN) |
[Asia News = Reporter Reakkana] WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden will announce Thursday (Dec 2) a winter campaign against COVID-19, with new testing requirements for travellers and a surge in vaccination efforts - but no clear path to defeating the pandemic he was elected to confront.
Biden has brought steady leadership after the chaotic Donald Trump years, but the mutating coronavirus continues to defy him, helping drive his approval ratings deep underwater. In a speech from the National Institutes of Health research centre outside Washington, Biden is set to list a raft of actions designed to tamp down COVID-19 during the winter as the latest Omicron variant spreads worldwide. The first US case was detected on Wednesday. Top of the list will be an announcement that toughened rules on testing for travellers will take effect within days, a senior administration official said.
Biden will "announce that we are further strengthening our testing requirements so that starting early next week, all international travellers will be required to test negative within one day of their departure to the United States," the official told reporters. This will apply to all travellers, both US and foreign, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated, the official aid. For domestic travellers, Biden will announce he is extending a mask mandate on aeroplanes, trains and other public transport through mid-March.
