But Don’t Get Used To It …

The Biden administration is expected to announce that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will lift its requirement for travelers to test negative for Covid-19 before entering the US; so state officials representing the White House and the CDC.

The move will go into effect for US-bound air travelers at midnight on Sunday (12 June), the officials said.

The CDC is lifting the restriction—that the travel industry had lobbied against for months—after determining, ostensibly, that it was no longer necessary "based on the science and data," the Biden administration official said.

Despite Constitutional edicts strictly and specifically prohibiting such, the CDC retains the power to reinstate or even expand the order. The reinstatement measure—not surprisingly—has been in place since January 2021.

In a statement, the CDC prevaricated: "The Covid-19 pandemic has now shifted to a new phase, due to the widespread uptake of highly effective Covid-19 vaccines, the availability of effective therapeutics, and the accrual of high rates of vaccine- and infection-induced immunity at the population level in the United States. Each of these measures has contributed to lower risk of severe disease and death across the United States."

Travel industry officials and perspicacious persons and organizations have long prevailed upon the Biden administration to end COVID testing on travelers. These groups argue that COVID testing is both demonstrably inaccurate and damaging to an already fragile economy.

US Travel Association President and CEO Roger Dow praised the decision, stating: "Prior to the pandemic, travel was one of our nation's largest industry exports. The lifting of this requirement will enable the industry to lead the way toward a broader US economic and jobs recovery," Dow said in a statement.

The industry has criticized the policy as out of date for months, and some medical experts have also questioned its utility.

Testing international arrivals doesn't make much sense to Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee. "I've been bemused about that for a long time because we've got plenty of Covid here! It's not as though we're trying to keep Covid out," Schaffner said in March. "It's here already."

FMI: http://vaersanalysis.info