CDC relaxes COVID-19 vaccination rules for international travelers

April 27 (UPI) -- The Centers for Disease Control on Thursday announced loosened rules on COVID-19 vaccine requirements for international travelers seeking to enter the United States.

In an update posted to its website, the CDC said its pandemic-era emergency rules have been liberalized so that a single dose of the Moderna or Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine taken on or after Aug. 16 is sufficient for international travelers to board a U.S.-bound plane.

The health agency said it is making the change because "some traveler vaccine records might not specify whether recent Moderna or Pfizer doses received were bivalent."

The Aug. 16 date was chosen because "it represents the earliest that travelers could have received a bivalent vaccine," officials said.

The move comes after the Food and Drug Administration announced last week it is simplifying the vaccination schedule for most people, including authorizing the current bivalent vaccines (original and omicron BA.4/BA.5 strains) to be used for all doses administered to those 6 months and older, including for an additional dose or doses for certain populations.

Concurrently, the monovalent Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccines are no longer authorized for use in the United States.

The CDC said that 78% of new U.S. COVID-19 cases are caused by the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5.