U.S. President Joe Biden has issued fresh directives on COVID-19 related travel restrictions. These directives include a ban on non-U.S. citizens traveling from South Africa and a reinstated ban on most non-American travellers from Brazil, the United Kingdom and some European countries.

The new restrictions on travel from South Africa went into effect on Saturday, as reported by Reuters.

“With the pandemic worsening and more contagious variants spreading, this isn’t the time to be lifting restrictions on international travel,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed at a press conference on Monday.

The new travel restriction follows White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci’s warning that the new COVID-19 strains identified in South Africa and Brazil could reduce the potency of the two vaccines currently being administered in the U.S.

The South Africa variant has not been discovered in the United States, however it is 50 percent more infectious than the other identified strains and has been detected in at least 22 other countries such as Canada, France, Germany and China who found the new variant in people who had recently traveled to/from South Africa.