US restricts travel from India amid COVID-19 surge

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US is moving to restrict travel from India as the South Asian nation sees an unprecedented spike in the number of COVID-19 infections, the White House announced on Friday.

"The policy will be implemented in light of extraordinarily high COVID-19 caseloads and multiple variants circulating in the India," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

The restrictions will take effect on May 4.

India continues to see world-record-breaking numbers of daily coronavirus infections with 386,452 infections recorded in the past 24 hours on Friday, according to official data.

The country's caseload has now reached 18.7 million, while overall fatalities have risen to 208,330, including 3,498 new deaths, the Indian Health Ministry said.

India has been witnessing an exponential rise in infections. Since April 22, the country has been registering over 300,000 daily cases, which has brought the country’s health system to near collapse, resulting in an acute shortage of beds, oxygen and treatment drugs.

Along with the rising number of cases, the number of daily fatalities has witnessed a massive increase across the country.

The capital New Delhi, which has been reporting a huge shortage of oxygen at hospitals for several days, late Thursday again reported its highest ever number of fatalities on a single day due to the coronavirus.