Brussels — In reimposing travel curbs on Americans, the EU is sending a message to the US that is as much about diplomacy as it is about epidemiology.
That reciprocity never came. A US travel ban on Europeans remains in place, almost 600 days after it was introduced in March 2020. This has prompted EU exasperation and a sense that a different outcome might have been possible. Compare that with the US ban on most travellers from the UK and about two dozen European countries. The restrictions have survived the change of administration from Trump to Biden, and endured even as the EU’s pandemic management has begun to outshine America’s. European countries now occupy almost all top 10 positions of Bloomberg’s Covid-19 resilience index, while the US languishes at No 25.