The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now identified Spain and seven other destinations as having the highest travel risk category, advising Americans not to visit these countries.
Due of the coronavirus outbreak, the CDC has been monitoring the travel risks of each country. The higher the risk level in a country, the greater the transmission. Level 4 is given to a country that has seen more than 500 cases per 100,000 population in the last 28 days.
According to CNN, seven more destinations, including Bonaire, Chad, Finland, Gibraltar, Lebanon, Monaco, and San Marino, were moved to the “Level 4: COVID-19 Very High” risk level on December 20. There are now 88 countries categorized as Level 4.
Greenland, Italy, and Mauritius had also been moved to the Level 4 category by the CDC a week earlier, on December 14.
These new adjustments come as the Omicron variant wreaks havoc on international travel once more. While most countries restricted travel to Southern Africa earlier this month, some are making it more difficult to travel between countries, such as the United States, where the Omicron variant has spread widely. For example, Israel has prohibited travel to the United States and Canada.
Other countries, particularly in Europe, have seen a sharp increase in Omicron variant cases, prompting tighter travel restrictions in the United Kingdom, Greece, and Italy, as E.U. member nations struggle to come up with unified restrictions that limit the spread of the new variant while also not negatively impacting holiday travel.
These newly recognised European Level 4 countries have some of the highest vaccination rates, as well as some of the greatest transmission rates. Spain, Italy, Finland, and the United Kingdom, according to Our World in Data, have higher vaccination rates than the United States.
The United Kingdom and Spain, as well as the United States, are seeing extraordinarily high numbers of positive COVID-19 cases. Italy and Finland have high rates as well, but not as high as the United States, where there are only about 420 positive instances per 100,000 persons.
– India’s new age travel digital media
