The CDC says the United States is asking UK travelers to take a negative test for COVID-19

The CDC said in a statement late on Thursday that the United States will begin requiring people traveling from the United Kingdom to have a negative test for Covid-19 72 hours before departure.

The announcement comes after the United Kingdom said earlier this week that it had identified a file A new strain of Covid-19 It appears to spread more quickly. The CDC said President Donald Trump will sign the order on Friday, Christmas Day, and the measure will take effect from Monday.

The CDC said passengers will have to provide airlines with documentation of their lab results from polymerase chain reaction (PCR) or antigen tests.

The agency said that airlines will also have to confirm that passengers have tested negative before boarding the plane. They would also have to prevent passengers from boarding if they refused to take the test.

Earlier this week, Delta Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic and British Airways began asking passengers to do so Test results are negative before boarding flights to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. United Airlines also requires negative test results for Passengers traveling from London Heathrow Airport To their hubs in Newark, New Jersey, Washington DC, or Chicago.

The new strain spurred dozens of Countries to quickly restrict travel from the UK Trying to prevent stress from entering their limits. The United States already has it Restricted travel from the UK In March, foreigners who had been in the country for the past two weeks were banned.

The World Health Organization said, however, that the new variant has also been detected in Australia, Denmark, Italy, Iceland and the Netherlands.

Earlier this week, the CDC suggested that the new strain could already be spread in the United States without being detected. While the variant has not yet been found in the country, the CDC indicated that the United States has only sequenced a small portion of the COVID-19 infection.