In justifying the ban, CDC officials are citing the pandemic’s effects on rabies vaccination programs, with many countries having suspended them for the time being, as well as an uptick in falsified vaccine cards used to get these dogs through inspection.

In some cases, dogs have been left waiting in storage to the point of illness or death after being denied entry due to fraudulent documentation, in part because of delays in flight schedules also affected by the pandemic.

“Given the impact that covid has had on these vaccination programs around the world, we’re not really sure what our rabies landscape is going to look like in the future,” Emily Pieracci, a veterinary medical officer at the CDC, told Reuters.