Fully vaccinated travelers from America and the European Union will be allowed to visit England without having to quarantine starting August 2, as the U.S. takes a step back by reversing its loosening of social restrictions. This includes imposing mask mandates in states with coronavirus hotspots and maintaining the travel ban on most non-U.S. citizens from entering the U.S. from Britain due to the rapid spread of the highly contagious delta variant.
“We're all dealing with an evolving virus where there's no playbook and no historic precedent,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Tuesday during a press briefing when asked why President Joe Biden earlier said, “If you’ve been fully vaccinated, you no longer need to wear a mask.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday announced that fully vaccinated Americans should wear masks indoors again, with CDC Director Rochelle Walensky citing the spread of the delta variant by vaccinated people.
“It's actually possible if you're a rare breakthrough infection that you can transmit further, which is the reason for the change,” she said.
The UK government made its travel announcement Wednesday and removed quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated residents if they had visited so-called amber list countries with less severe COVID-19 situations.
The news came as coronavirus cases plummet in Britain. The daily number of new infections recorded in the UK fell for seven days in a row before a small uptick Wednesday despite predictions from public health experts that the cases would be rising at this point.
More than 70 percent of adults in Britain are fully vaccinated and 88 percent have had one dose.
“We're helping reunite people living in the US and European countries with their family and friends in the UK,” UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said via Twitter Wednesday.
“From 2nd August at 4am people from these countries will be able to come to the England from an amber country without having to quarantine if they're fully vaxxed.”
Fox News host Laura Ingraham said Biden “keeps changing the rules of the game.”
“Why? Because that's what megalomaniacs do, just as with 100 days of mask-wearing, there's always a catch, right?” she said during her opening on “The Ingraham Angle” Tuesday
“The CDC has been moving the COVID goalposts since March of 2020,” she added. “It was two weeks to slow the spread where we had Mike Pence up there, it got to save the hospitals.
“Of course, we have to do that. Then it went to lockdowns and capacity restrictions until we had a vaccine. Well, have a vaccine now and now it's entirely conceivable that Democrats will be wearing masks at their 2024 convention, there's always going to be a reason to take a step backward for people who prefer lockdowns to actual living.”