Biden administration plans to end pandemic border restrictions blocking migrants in May
The Biden administration is expected to end the asylum limits at the U.S.-Mexico border by May 23 that were put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19, according to people familiar with the matter.
The decision, not yet final, would halt use of public health powers to absolve the United States of obligations under American law and international treaty to provide haven to people fleeing persecution, and would apply to all asylum-seekers. Read more here:
CDC lifts risk advisory for cruises
Cruise travel no longer carries a CDC Covid-19 risk warning.
While the move doesn’t mean there is no risk of Covid-19 transmission on cruises, “travelers will make their own risk assessment when choosing to travel on a cruise ship, much like they do in all other travel settings,” the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement.
The agency has dropped the popular means of travel from its list of travel health notices in what is undoubtedly a relief for a sector that has instituted some of the travel industry’s strictest Covid-19 precautions. Read more here:
COVID deaths up, but case numbers are down
The number of people killed by the coronavirus surged by more than 40% last week, likely due to changes in how COVID-19 deaths were reported across the Americas and by newly adjusted figures from India, according to a World Health Organization report released Wednesday.
In its latest weekly report on the pandemic, the U.N. health agency said the number of new coronavirus cases fell everywhere, including in WHO’s Western Pacific region, where they had been rising since December. Read more here:
Biden gets his second booster
President Joe Biden on Wednesday urged lawmakers to secure more funding for his administration’s Covid-19 response and warned of severe consequences for the nation if Congress doesn’t authorize the money.
“This isn’t partisan, it’s medicine,” Biden said in a speech from the White House while urging Congress to act “immediately.”
The President said without the new funding, the US will not be able to sustain its current testing capacity beyond June and that by the fall it will not have enough vaccine supply to provide booster shots to all who are eligible. Read more here:
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David J. Phillip
A worker prepares to administer a COVID-19 test at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
John Minchillo
Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island, Thursday, April 9, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
Emilio Morenatti
Francisco Espana, 60, looks at the Mediterranean sea from a promenade next to the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. Francisco spent 52 days in the intensive care unit at the hospital due to the coronavirus, but today he was allowed by his doctors to spend almost ten minutes at the seaside as part of his recovery therapy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Jae C. Hong
Romelia Navarro, 64, weeps while hugging her husband, Antonio, in his final moments in a COVID-19 unit at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif., July 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
Dar Yasin
Masrat Farid, a healthcare worker, prepares to administer a dose of Covishield vaccine to Rubia Begum inside a hut during a COVID-19 vaccination drive in Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir on June 22, 2021. Farid has traveled long distances to vaccinate mostly shepherds and nomadic herders in the remote meadows of the Himalayan region of Indian-controlled Kashmir. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Ishant Chauhan
People watch burning funeral pyres of their relatives who died of COVID-19 in a ground that has been converted into a crematorium in New Delhi, India, Thursday, May 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Ishant Chauhan)
Mark Schiefelbein
Chinese paramilitary police wearing goggles and face masks march in formation at the Yanqing National Sliding Center during an IBSF sanctioned race, a test event for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Kevin Hagen
New Yorkers who died during the coronavirus pandemic are projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge during a commemoration ceremony Sunday, March 14, 2021, in Brooklyn, NY. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez
Family members, reflected in the window, wave goodbye to nursing home resident Barbara Farrior, 85, at the end of their visit at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, in New York. The home offered drive-up visits for families of residents struggling with celebrating the holiday alone. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Ebrahim Noroozi
Cleric women wearing protective clothing and "chador," a head-to-toe garment, arrive a cemetery to prepare the body of a victim who died from the new coronavirus for a funeral, in the city of Ghaemshahr, in north of Iran, Thursday, April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
K.M. Chaudary
Woman attend their yoga exercise in a park while heavy fog envelops the areas of Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Natacha Pisarenko
Debora Aberastegui holds the hands of her father Pedro Aberastegui through a plastic sleeve at the Reminiscencias residence for the elderly in Tandil, Argentina, Monday, April 5, 2021. Residents here do not have physical contact with their families or leave the residence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but stay active with group activities within the facility. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Rodrigo Abd
A neonatologist examines Maria Alvarez's newborn baby girl at the National Maternal Perinatal Institute in an isolated area reserved for mothers infected with COVID-19, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, July 29, 2020. The 24-year-old first-time mother wept during her labor not just from pain, but because the baby would be born without her father. The baby's father died from the new coronavirus in June. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Justin Tang
Protesters dance and embrace as a song plays over the speakers, during an ongoing protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
Rodrigo Abd
Corazona Pena's body lies wrapped in plastic by a Peruvian COVID-19 specialized government team in Pucallpa, in Peru's Ucayali region, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Ramon Espinosa
Wearing masks and plastic gloves amid the spread of the coronavirus, girls raise her hands during class in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Nov. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Bernat Armangue
Cast members wear face masks backstage under COVID-19 protocol measures during a performance of "Rusalka" opera at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Emilio Morenatti
A patient rests in a chair next to his bed at the COVID-19 ward at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Kin Cheung
Patients lie on hospital beds as they wait at a temporary makeshift treatment area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Mstyslav Chernov
A pathologist conducts an autopsy on a man who died from COVID-19 in an anatomical theater at the Lviv National Medical University in Lviv, Western Ukraine, on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)
Leo Correa
Siny Gueye, center left, is joined by other women fish processors to sing a blessing and thankful song at Bargny beach, east of Dakar, Senegal, Thursday April 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Ng Han Guan
A cat is carried inside a backpack in Wuhan on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Oded Balilty
Israeli child Rafael Peled, 8, looks through a VR virtual reality goggles as he receives a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from medical staff at the Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Natacha Pisarenko
Blanca Ortiz, 84, celebrates after learning from nurses that she will be dismissed from the Eurnekian Ezeiza Hospital, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Aug. 13, 2020, several weeks after being admitted with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Alexander Zemlianichenko
Father Vasily Gelevan, wearing a biohazard suit and gloves to protect against the coronavirus, gives the Bible to kiss to Serafima Matveyeva, 92, who is suspected of being infected with the coronavirus, at her apartment in Moscow, Russia, May 26, 2020. In addition to his regular duties as a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Vasily visits people infected with COVID-19 at their homes and hospitals. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Ng Han Guan
Residents climb onto chairs to buy groceries from vendors behind barriers used to seal off a neighborhood in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on Friday, April 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Rafiq Maqbool
A health worker arrives to screen people for symptoms of COVID-19 in Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, in Mumbai, India, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Felipe Dana
Coffins carrying the bodies of people who died of coronavirus and are stored waiting to be buried or incinerated in an underground parking lot at the Collserola funeral home in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, April 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Felipe Dana
SOS Funeral workers transport by boat the coffin containing the body of a suspected COVID-19 victim that died in a river-side community near Manaus, Brazil on May 14, 2020. The victim, an 86-year-old woman, lived by the Negro river, the largest tributary to the Amazon river. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Francisco Seco
A woman bangs a pot in support of medical staff who are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak during a partial lockdown against the spread of the coronavirus in Brussels on March 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Oded Balilty
Jackals eat dog food that was left for them by an Israeli woman at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel on April 10, 202. When Tel Aviv was in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, it cleared the way for packs of jackals to take over this urban oasis in the heart of the city. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
