The European Union is expected to remove the United States from its list of epidemiologically sound countries in the coming week. That’s in part because of the surge in U.S. Covid-19 cases, but is also politically motivated: “reciprocity considerations” for the U.S. continuing to ban visitors who have been in Schengen Europe within the past 14 days.
This would mean that the EU recommends against allowing American visitors, however each country still sets its own entry rules. As a result nothing may change, there could be come changes in rules leading to greater inconsistency, or several countries could ban American travelers.
What we have is a return to ‘regime uncertainty’ which I’ve written about for a year as a key driver of difficulty in booking trips.
- A destination may be open when you buy tickets, but will it still be open when it comes time to travel?
- What about changes to rules for entering any connecting city, in the event of a misconnection?
- And rules for returning to your home country, such as testing or vaccination requirements? (And which tests and vaccines count, taken how recently?)
If rules around American visitors change, it might not happen right away. For instance, several countries rely far more heavily on tourism through the end of August and could implement changes after peak season.
And the U.S. could impose vaccination restrictions for entry as an alternative to bans of travelers from specific regions and such a move could diplomatically head off European retribution for U.S. stupidity. American Airlines CEO Doug Parker, for instance, describes a European consultant who traveled to their Skyview campus:
[W]e had a consultant come in, she’s from Munich. She, in order to get to the United States, flew to Cancun for two weeks, and then she was allowed to enter. She was a lot safer in Munich than she was in Cancun. But that’s what we’re doing.
The U.S. bans vaccinated travelers from Germany, where Covid prevalence is low, yet welcomes unvaccinated Indonesians (where there’s one of the worst outbreaks in the world). Indeed a German entering the U.S. who has been vaccinated and tests negative (as required to enter the country) is far less of a Covid-19 risk than the median American you’ll run into in a bar.
Keep in mind the fool in the white house is allowing thousands of infected people to cross the southern border everyday.
Fool in the White House and his handlers are allowing illegals to cross the US Southern (no more) border with unknown illnesses into our country. Biden and his handlers are destroying the US – maybe that’s what they want.
Once again the inbred imbeciles ruin things for the rest of us.
I wonder why the EU would ban Americans since Covid is a “hoax” and will “magically go away”?
DeSantis is responsible for the worst Covid conditions in the country, doesn’t have a “southern border” yet is able to convince the Nobel laureates of the QAnon base that “brown people” are causing Florida’s hospitals to overflow and children to succumb to Covid.
Darwin wins again.
Keep in mind the selfish fools in the US who refuse to get vaccinated.
@ Alan and @ CJ — turn your TV from FoxNews and maybe you won’t repeat thir stupid lies.
Imagine if we had the billions of money back from the Trump wall that washes away, people can climb and slip through, we could start a marketing campaign to implore all the inbred, right wing, conspiracy theorist, whacko fake Christian nut jobs to take the vaccine.
These same people would have kept polio and small pox alive because its “their body their choice” except when they are telling women what they can and can’t do to their bodies while they’re simultaneously bashing gay people and then get caught in the bathroom stall being gay.
The hypocrisy of all y’all is astounding.
Now go into Alta Vista and look up some of the big words, because y’all are the reason stuff is going to shut down again.
#SelfishPricks
@Alan and @CJ – It’s not thousands. It’s tens of thousands. Maybe even hundreds of thousands per day. By the bus load, in caravans, through tunnels under Trump’s wall. They’re all coming to the US to steal your job, your wife, to overrun your town. Too bad there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it except post it all over the internet. So bitter, so powerless, so frustrating. It must torture you two to no end.
@ Babblespeak – you words are stupid and you are clueless.
Magnificent, Babblespeak.
@Babblespeak…nicely done. But if you really want to get CJ and Alan’s attention let them know that these furriners will want to sleep with their livestock too.
“I’ll bet they go for that sheep with the purty mouth” said CJ
@Gene/@Tom K/@Babblespeak: The personal attacks are no doubt fun for you guys but one would hope that do you have an actual argument on why the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who are untested and thousands of confirmed positive illegals being let through the border (and shipped across the country) is ok ? Other than lowering the the wages of your local low-income folks…
Speaking as a physician who is vaccinated (and thinks it should be mandated) and actually sees many of these patients in my hospital, I can’t think of a reason why this is good public policy. Screaming that it is a FoxNews plot rather than addressing the claims made in articles like this ( https://www.foxnews.com/politics/texas-border-city-covid-positive-migrants-released-february-last-week ) is an issue for those of us independents who actually care for data / evidence and don’t blindly believe in orange man bad theories of the world
Perhaps those who don’t believe that there is an influx of undocumented and unvaccinated persons entering our country through our porous southern border might want to visit Del Rio, Texas on vacation if we are soon prohibited from visiting European countries. See for yourselves. In addition, there is a nice surprise in store – a cute little winery, Val Verde, that makes a pretty nice port.
Just because something is on Fox News and ignored by outlets such as CNN or MSNBC doesn’t make it untrue. The opposite is true, as well.
Every media outlet has their own point of view and bias. Failing to recognize that and willfully choosing to be manipulated is unfortunate.
@Steve….Excellent points. I wish that news commentators and politically-involved people would stress these hypocracies. Career politicians can be the dregs of society. As Bill Maher stated this past week, there are less requirements to become a congressional rep.. than for many mundane jobs.
Almost every baby in America gets a HepB vaccination within an hour of birth. That’s followed shortly afterwards with Chickenpox, DPT, MMR, and Polio. For all the commonsense routine medical precautions we’ve adopted, this vaccine has become politicized by idiots with no medical background.
Those choosing not to get vaccinated should realize they risk death. Sometimes I think media shies away from using such stark terminology.
@Steve
The lowest percentage of vaccinated people are Black and Latino. Why do you hate them?
@ Tom K from Seattle
You are obnoxious and ignorant
Until I read this blog I never knew Trump and Fox News were the source of all the world’s ills. Then it will be pretty easy for Biden to fix it all. Trump is gone now, and go shut down Fox News. Nation’s problems are solved!!!
Silly me, but I thought China had something to do with CoVid.
@Gene,
shut your racist and marxist mouth. Only garbage comes out.
And the U.S. government wonders why the U.S. citizens don’t trust government information. We get subjected to complaints about misinformation and government censorship and managed information flow. We get completely non-sensical policies. And the government complains that people won’t get vaccines because of misinformation. What if the government tried being truthful and candid instead?
Why is the border closed to Canadians? Germans?
Why is it not allowed to talk about the safe drug Ivermectin?
Why don’t we publish data about Covid infections in vaccinated people?
@CJ: I’m taking you off my Insult Team if ,”You are obnoxious and ignorant” is your best shot.
For $399 I will sell you a list of my 1000 best blog insults.
(It’s a license so you can only use each insult once, but I will work a package deal)
@ Alan and @ CJ — find another forum to spread your lies and bullshit.
Its not purely political from Europe’s standpoint. I understand Gary who is always bashing having to wear masks on planes in his articles would claim that but the reality is covid is raging in the US due to the anti-vaxxer/anti-masker crowd. These covidiots have set back the entire country and are the ones who should be held responsible,. I am frickin livid that my trip to europe may have to be cancelled because of these covidiot buffoons.
A lot of the pressure to go north from Central America dates back to the babbling idiot Reagan and the vicious criminal Bush financing death squads that destabilized these countries. In fact, one can trace this back to Guatemala in ’54 and the CIA thinking it did a good job overthrowing the government. (Just as it did the year before in Iran, and the people there never forgot that.) Then too climate change has made living in these places almost impossible. Of course Fox will never connect the dots. Too close to home.
Th EU (or any EU country) barring American travelers would have no effect whatsoever, other than to deprive the EU tourist industry of money spent by American tourists. The administration simply doesn’t care (nor do most Americans), so they’d just be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. The administration will lift the ban whenever they get around to it, and the only way that will change is if A LOT of people in America get riled up about it.
If we ban the unvaccinated from entry we effectively ban most blacks from Africa as the vaccination rate are very low there and the vaccines being given (China/Russia) are not necessarily accepted in the US. Now if you aren’t black, you might fail to see how racist Biden and his Democrats administration can be. C’mon Democrats, you went and showed your racist colors when you sowed doubt among your black Democrats about the vaccine last fall and your murderous intent by allowing illegal aliens to come into the country untested or sick with COVID and be shipped around the country to places with high amounts of unvaccinated black Democrats, like Florida.
Hard to blame the EU with rising cases over here and the absolute nonsense that is Mexico being permitted to travel to the US whilst Europeans cannot.
West’s adversaries (eg China, Russia, Belorussia, Iran, etc.) are jumping in joy!! Cultural, political and economic alliance are crumpling are crumbling right in front of them. “Good job”, the US and the EU!! (I am benign sarcastic, of course). In the past few years the West has done to itself what the Russian and the Chinese intelligence agencies have been trying to achieve for years….Sad state of events with no end in sight.
Proofread version of my previous note: West’s adversaries (eg China, Russia, Belorussia, Iran, etc.) are jumping in joy!! Cultural, political and economic alliances are crumbling right in front of them. “Good job”, the US and the EU!! (I am being sarcastic, of course). In the past few years the West itself has done to itself what the Russian and the Chinese intelligence agencies have been trying to achieve for years….
@Censorship sucks From the FDA website:
Here’s What You Need to Know about Ivermectin:
FDA has not approved ivermectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans.
Ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses for some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea. Ivermectin is not an anti-viral (a drug for treating viruses).
Taking large doses of this drug is dangerous and can cause serious harm.
If you have a prescription for ivermectin for an FDA-approved use, get it from a legitimate source and take it exactly as prescribed.
Never use medications intended for animals on yourself. Ivermectin preparations for animals are very different from those approved for humans.
Or in other words stop being a covidiot
I really wonder what to do. We are booked mid September for a 5 day Lisbon, 5 day Amsterdam trip from JFK. So many rules to consider, that seem to change on a daily basis. Can we get into Portugal? Can we get into Amsterdam? Can we get back into the US via Portugal? We are vaccinated, and still seem to need tests along the way (per today’s status) and who knows what it will look like one month from today. It is so confusing.
And yes, this is family visits including my 90 year old mother… and we have not seen any of them other than on Facetime.
NOTE: not posting this to get advice but to merely point out the uncertainty of travel…
@ FoxNews viewers – The reason the whole immigrants pouring accross the border thing is a lie is that people have to pass through checkpoints just like always. FoxNews acts like people from Mexico can just cross the border without legally-required documentation. LIE.
@Censorship – a little homework will help you, but in the meantime:
– Ivermectin is not an anti-viral and therefore is not effective against the COVID virus. The safety and efficacy of this drug has been discussed extensively by the FDA, NIH and EMA, so there’s plenty of robust scientific debate out there, if you can look up from your Fox TV remote to read it.
– likewise, the COVID incidence in vaccinated people has been published widely in global scientific literature … and yes, I do know vaccinated people get the virus, that’s why they’re stated as ~95% efficacious, which is an impressive measure of their efficacy.
I think I speak for all of us that CJ is an idiot. Try getting out of that trailer sometime.
@Tom K from Seattle
My sources (CDC, Johns Hopkins University, among others) indicate your allegations about Gov. DeSantis’ difficulties are incorrect.
The number of persons with Covid-19 per 100,000 is less in Florida than in New York, New Jersey, or Massachusetts.
Florida’s hospitals are not overflowing and Florida’s children are not succumbing to Covid-19.
Typically, children who get infected have mild cases; individuals with comorbidities are at greater risk from Covid-19, for example, those with leukemia, other serious blood diseases, parasitic infections, etc.
As to the use of masks by school children, their teachers, other personnel or visitors in schools, the best evidence to date indicates that youngsters who wear masks for an entire school day (meals and snacks excluded) risk not getting sufficient oxygen while masked. Moreover, long term mask wearing has been shown to cause psychological problems in school-age children.
Indeed, the best evidence on the effectiveness of the sort of masks typically worn by nonmedical personnel — that is, cloth masks — is that such masks are useless in preventing the penetration of virus particles: the spaces between the fibers are too great to trap virus particles. Furthermore, long-term wearing of masks means that the wearer is subject to breathing in contaminants trapped in the masks.
Why wouldn’t the EU want us? Oh, that’s right, lots of dumb, act like they’re in the “know” Americans would rather listen to stupid conspiracy theories, blame everyone else, bring the virus back to high levels and even die. Thanks for a lot of unnecessary grief, heartache and death because you like to shout about your “freedom”. Well, thanks for taking away “freedom” for the rest of us !!!!
I will say we are all tired of dealing with life in the COVID era. I would just like to see everyone accept that the vaccine is our best chance for a return to normalcy. They’ve been around for about a year and there does not appear to be a medical reason to fear getting the shot. At this point I’d implore folks to get the vaccine and hopefully the narrative on COVID changes for the better.
If the ban is announced this week, when does it officially start? I am having trouble finding information about the determination date and the date that it would go into effect.
America – a terminally-ill nation that’s doing its best to slit its own throat, filled to the brim with arrogant and decadent people who can only wish to be intelligent enough to be called stupid.
Biden promised to restore positive relations with the rest of the world, starting most urgently with Europe. After giving Biden his daily ice cream cone, his team leaned on Europe to lift the travel ban on Americans, while promising to reciprocate quickly. Europe promptly followed through and Biden asked for another scoop, completely forgetting to reciprocate (or that he isn’t still in the Senate).
Oh, and the fools dismissing the Covid hordes crossing our southern border need to consult the right-wing conspiracy website known as NBC News, which reported just a few days ago that 20% of migrants crossing the border test positive for Covid and 80% of them reject the vaccine when they are offered it. ICE then purchases each of them a bus or plane ticket to take them to the destination of their choice with no quarantine (much less negative test) required.
A terminally-ill nation more focused on its own freedom to be as immoral as possible than on doing the right thing, ever.