The Biden administration is planning to roll out a new policy in November that denies the right to travel or immigrate to the United States to anyone in the world who is unvaccinated. It will replace various nonsensical travel bans on Europeans, Chinese, Iranians, Brazilians, South Africans, and Indians, but a majority of the world (57 percent) has not received even a single shot of any of the vaccines, and only 1.9 percent of people in low‐​income countries have received at least one dose. This includes pretty much the entire continent of Africa.

Currently, everyone—vaccinated or not—traveling to the United States must test negative for COVID-19. In the United States, pharmacies have ample supplies of vaccines available for anyone who wants one, and if the administration does move to mandate the vaccine, it must allow immigrants and travelers from places where the vaccine is not available to have the opportunity to travel to the United States in order to get vaccinated. Otherwise, this discriminatory policy would wrongly exclude billions of people unable to obtain a vaccine.