US to end Covid vaccination requirements for international travellers, others on May 11

The White House on Monday announced that the US will end its COVID-19 vaccination requirements for international travellers and federal workers on May 11, nearly three years after first enforcing the policy.

"Today, we are announcing that the administration will end the COVID-19 vaccine requirements for Federal employees, Federal contractors, and international air travellers at the end of the day on May 11," read the statement.

Additionally, the Health and Human Services (HHS) and Homeland Security departments (DHS) will also initiate their own processes to end vaccination requirements.

"HHS and DHS announced today that they will start the process to end their vaccination requirements for Head Start educators, CMS-certified healthcare facilities, and certain non-citizens at the land border. In the coming days, further details related to ending these requirements will be provided," it added.

According to the White House, the administration was moving into a "different phase" of the Covid response as mandatory vaccination was one of the measures that was no longer required. Notably, the USA is one of the last few countries to remove the mandate for travellers.

Vaccine mandate and the political fight

The vaccine mandate also became the centre of a political slugfest between the Republicans and Democrats. The requirement was one of the reasons why Serbian tennis superstar Novak Djokovic was not able to enter the US and was forced to miss several high-profile tournaments, including the Grand Slam.

The Biden administration will be ending the requirements on the same day it terminates the pandemic-related public health emergency. Last month, President Joe Biden signed a bipartisan congressional resolution, weeks before the emergency mandate was set to expire.

Former president Donald Trump's health and human services secretary Alex Azar first declared a public health emergency on January 31, 2020. The public health experts at the time argued that requirements were necessary so as to confront vaccine hesitancy and increase protection against the deadly virus.

Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) last month also stated it was planning to stop tracking the spread of COVID-19 in communities around the country. The CDC will keep a tab on Covid infections by tracking hospitalisations in some areas.

“We’re not going to lose complete surveillance, but we will lose that hyper-local sensitivity to it perhaps,” said CDC.

More than 1.13 million in the US have died from COVID-19 over the last three years. However, with the cases slowing down, the need for vaccine mandate has been nullified.

(With inputs from agencies)

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