Health

Mexico, US study travel arrangements announced by Joe Biden

Mexico City, Jan 22 (efe-epa).- Mexico and the United States are studying the scope of the executive action signed by US President Joe Biden to promote safe domestic and international travel amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Mexican government said on Friday.

The interior, foreign affairs, health, and tourism ministries and the National Institute of Migration announced in a joint statement that they had started a dialog with the US authorities on the issue.

“Mechanisms are being discussed to determine the type of tests to be performed on persons traveling to the United States, before boarding a flight or crossing the border by land. The dialog will specify the time periods prior to the trip in which these tests will be carried out,” the statement said.

It added that another issue that both governments were reviewing was the quarantine that the new US president announced Thursday.

“The willingness of some travelers to quarantine on arrival at their destination as well as its duration and under what conditions is being examined,” the ministries said.

A day after taking office as the 46th US president, Biden, on Thursday, launched what he described as a “wartime” strategy to prevent the virus from spreading.

It included a mandatory quarantine for passengers arriving in the country from overseas and mandatory mask-wearing on airplanes.

Because of this, the Mexican government said it would keep the public, the bi-national community, and the various industries informed of the measures taken.

It added that since the start of the pandemic, it had promoted joint measures to prevent non-essential travel and protect the health of people traveling between the two countries.

On Jan.11, the Mexican foreign ministry said it had proposed to the US government to extend the closure of the common border until Feb.21 following an analysis of the development of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ministry said the restrictions in place since Mar. 21, 2020, when both countries closed their borders for non-essential travel, i.e. those for recreational or tourist purposes, would remain in place.

The measure also halted immigration to the US leaving thousands of migrants stranded along the northern Mexican border, according to nonprofits.

However, the restrictions imposed have not prevented the commercial transit of food, fuel, medical care equipment, and medicines across the border between the two countries. EFE-EPA

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