On Thursday, the White House announced a myriad of executive orders, including a 200-page National Strategy for the COVID-19 Response and Pandemic Preparedness.
The strategy has seven goals:
- Restore trust with the American people
- Mount a safe, effective, comprehensive vaccination campaign
- Mitigate spread through expanding masking, testing, treatment, data, workforce, and clear public health standards
- Immediately expand emergency relief and exercise the Defense Production Act
- Safely reopen schools, businesses, and travel, while protecting workers
- Protect those most at risk and advance equity, including across racial, ethnic and rural/urban lines
- Restore U.S. leadership globally and build better preparedness for future threats
On the passing of the executive orders, U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Roger Dow said the association welcomed the policies “that will encourage safe travel and help restore the millions of U.S. travel jobs that were lost last year.”
He continued: “The [Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s] inbound testing requirement is the key to reopening international travel and it adds another important layer of safety. If the testing requirement is going to work on a global scale, it has to be flexible and reflect where testing resources are available and where they’re not. The executive order would allow for flexibility if it’s needed.
“We also strongly support the president’s mask mandate for interstate travel, which is in line with the industry’s health and safety guidance and consistent with what countless travel businesses are already doing to protect travelers and workers.
“In particular, the repeal of the travel ban from certain Muslim-majority countries is the right move. The CDC testing requirement for international travelers should also pave the way to ease other travel restrictions, including those on the U.K., the E.U., and Brazil in the near term.”
Dow noted, however, that “the executive order on travel also leaves many important questions unanswered.” One of those is a mandatory quarantine requirement for international travelers; Dow calls this “extremely difficult to enforce—and unnecessary in light of required testing and the many other protections now in place.”
Further, domestically, where there aren’t defined ports of entry for travelers, Dow said that “mandatory testing and other requirements are also impractical and could divert scarce public health resources away from other priorities.”
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