August 5, 2021

  The White House has confirmed that it is considering requiring foreign visitors to show proof of vaccination to potentially restart international travel. Jeff Zients, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator, told the Reuters news agency that multiple federal agencies are looking into the possibility. The United States still has no timetable for resuming international travel given the spread of the delta variant of the coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease. The U.S. first imposed travel restrictions on China in January 2020. Since then, several other countries, including India and many in Europe, have faced similar restrictions. Two issues facing

    Australia continued Thursday to struggle against the delta variant of the coronavirus, with its largest city, Sydney, reporting a record daily number of new cases and the state of Victoria announcing a one-week lockdown. Sydney, which is near the seventh week of a nine-week lockdown, reported 262 cases and five deaths in the past 24 hours. So far, the country as a whole has seen relatively few cases and deaths, but vaccination rates are low, with only about 20% of people over 16 fully vaccinated. Victoria’s lockdown was triggered by eight new cases. “Nothing about this is optional.