(Washington) The United States reopened its land and air borders on Monday to travelers vaccinated against COVID-19, after 20 months of restrictions particularly badly experienced in Europe or among neighbors Mexico and Canada.
Separated families, disrupted business relationships, thwarted professional ambitions: the “travel ban” imposed by Donald Trump at the beginning of 2020, then confirmed by his successor Joe Biden, has been widely criticized and has become emblematic of the upheavals caused by the pandemic .
To guard against the countries most affected by COVID-19, Donald Trump had imposed restrictions on travel from China in February 2020. Then on March 13, it was the turn of the European countries of the Schengen area. Great Britain and Ireland followed a few days later, while the land borders with Mexico and Canada were largely closed.
PHOTO ROB GURDEBEKE, ARCHIVES THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Ambassador Bridge providing access to the United States in Windsor, Ontario.
With all these countries, the density of human and economic exchanges is immense.
“It was so hard,” “I just want to see my son,” said Alison Henry, a 63-year-old Briton who will fly to his home in New York on Monday.
Residing in the UK since 2014, Isabelle Karpinski, 26, has had to repeatedly postpone her vacation in Mississippi to introduce her boyfriend to her family. “It was a bit surreal and really frustrating to have to push back, push back and push back the trip, only to cancel it,” she says. “I asked myself: will I ever see my family again? ”
Many families on both sides of the Atlantic are eagerly awaiting this reunion. It was certainly possible to travel from the United States to Europe since last summer, but foreigners living on American soil and holding certain visas had no guarantee of being able to return home.
To cope with the influx of demands, airlines have increased the number of transatlantic flights. They will use bigger planes, because this lifting of restrictions also represents a breath of fresh air for a sector plunged into crisis by the pandemic.
For their part, the Mexican authorities expect huge traffic jams at border posts. “There will be portable toilets installed on all three decks, because according to the authorities in the United States, waiting times can reach four hours. We ask drivers to be patient, ”said César Alberto Tapia, director of road safety for the border town of Ciudad Juarez, linked to El Paso (Texas) by three international bridges.
The exchange offices in Ciudad Juarez have reported a shortage of dollars in recent days.
Along the immense Mexican border, many American cities, in Texas or California, suffered economically from the restriction of trade.
“The pandemic has affected everyone and we are just waiting for our people to come and visit us too,” Marcos Rivera, owner of a clothing store in El Paso, told AFP.
In the north of the continent, Canadian retirees will be able without fear, at the time of the first frost, to undertake their journey by car to Florida and its mild climatic conditions.
Vaccination and testing
More than thirty countries are affected by the lifting of the “travel ban”. But entry will not be completely free, and US authorities intend to monitor the vaccination status of travelers, at the same time as they will continue to demand negative COVID-19 tests.
For travelers arriving by air, the United States will request from Monday, in addition to proof of vaccination and a test within three days before departure, the establishment by the airlines of a contact tracking system.
For the overland route, the restrictions will be lifted in two stages.
From Monday, people coming for reasons deemed non-essential, for example family or tourism, will be able to cross the border of Canada or Mexico, provided they are vaccinated. People coming for compelling reasons – for example truck drivers – will be exempt.
From January, the vaccination obligation will apply to all visitors crossing land borders, regardless of their reason for entry.
US health officials have indicated that all vaccines approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) will be accepted.
For the moment, according to the WHO emergency procedure, these are the vaccines AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Pfizer / BioNTech, the Indian Covaxin, Sinopharm and Sinovac. These two Chinese vaccines will therefore make it possible to cross the borders of the United States.