The U.S.’ ban on travel from India goes into effect today, preventing most non-U.S. citizens from entering the country.
India is in the midst of a major surge, surpassing 20 million cases on Tuesday.
But some health experts question whether or not a ban on travel is the right strategy.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the U.S. instituted a travel ban from China.
“The travel restrictions that we had from China didn’t stop the pandemic from coming here, it was already here,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
And he says it is very likely that the Indian variant of the virus has already made its way to the U.S. without us knowing about it.
“We don’t do enough sequencing, we don’t actually have good situational awareness of where these variants all are; so I tend to be someone who’s more skeptical of travel bans.”
He says that one thing that travel bans will accomplish is making it more difficult to send aid to India.
Instead, Dr. Adalja advocates for health screenings and rapid testing at all ports of entry.
“We have the ability to recognize these people. So I think that (banning travel) is more disruptive and kind of puts the attention elsewhere, when we really should be assuming that this variant is spreading in the United States as well.”
The Indian variant is also known as B.1.617 and may be another more transmissible variant; testing is currently under way to determine whether or not that is the case.
But scientists believe that the existing vaccines will still protect people from developing a serious case.
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