Travel restrictions from India came "weeks" too late

“Travel restrictions should have been imposed much earlier,” Lawrence Gostin, a professor of global health law and director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, told The Daily Beast. “We have known for some time of the crisis in India—including worrying variants.”... “It’s been clear for more than a month that India is the epicenter of the pandemic,” said Dr. Arnold Monto, a professor of epidemiology and global health at the University of Michigan. “These restrictions should have been in effect weeks ago.” Gostin said the delay in issuing guidance, as well as the four-day break in between the announcement of the restrictions and their implementation, made him concerned that the government was falling behind in the race to keep India’s variants from gaining a foothold in the United States, where half of adults have gotten at least one dose of the coronavirus vaccine. The lack of clarity on potential quarantine for those following the guidance by returning home, too, is a source of frustration for public health experts. “I do have concerns,” Gostin said. “Announcing the travel restrictions in advance will mean that many more passengers from India will arrive before then, some carrying dangerous variants into the U.S. Also, there are no clear rules for U.S. citizens who are just as likely to spread variants when they arrive home.”