Reuters, citing a White House official, on Monday (26 July) reported the US had no plans to lift any existing travel restrictions "at this point".

"Given where we are today with the Delta variant, the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point," Reuters reported the official as saying.

They added cases were rising in the US among those not fully vaccinated, with infections expected to continue rising in the weeks ahead.

Last week, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention upped the UK’s Covid threat level to "very high" as cases of the Delta variant increased, and advised people not to travel to the UK.

Cases in the UK, though, where the Delta variant is now dominant, have gone down for five consecutive days in the period towards the end of last week to Sunday (25 July).

The Foreign Office has eased its Covid-specific travel advice for the US, which is on the UK’s amber list, meaning fully vaccinated Brits can return from the US without having to quarantine.

The US is currently still barring entry to most non-US citizens who have been been in the UK, Ireland, the Schengen area and/or several other countries in the past 14 days.

President Biden did, however, recently hint at a possible relaxation of US-Europe travel rules, although this was before the recent spike in Covid infection in the US relating to the Delta variant.

Earlier this month, at a joint press conference held with German chancellor Angela Merkel, Biden said efforts to review the US’s travel rules were "in process", adding he expected to be able to answer Merkel’s query on a possible relaxation "within the next several days", although there has been no further word from the Biden camp.

Back in June, the UK and US committed to setting up a new taskforce, headed up by transport secretary Grant Shapps, to explore how travel between the two countries could resume.