US to impose travel restriction on South Africa due to COVID-19

WASHINGTON -- US President Joe Biden on Monday will ban most non-US citizens traveling from South Africa from entering the United States, multiple media outlets reported Sunday.

Biden would also reinstate travel restriction on the Schengen area of Europe, Britain, Ireland, and Brazil, which his predecessor Donald Trump had planned to rescind effective on Jan 26, according to the reports.

US media said that the United States has not yet detected any cases of the COVID-19 variant first identified in South Africa, but several states have detected the variant discovered in Britain.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 25 million on Sunday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.