The US State Department on Thursday lifted its “do not travel” recommendation for all international travel after almost five months.
The opinion was launched in March when cases of COVID-19 spread exponentially around the world. The bulletin originally put all countries outside the US under a Level 4 warning: Do not travel – the highest recommendation – due to the risk of contracting COVID-19 when traveling overseas. The result was a substantial ban on international travel for US citizens.
Now that the all-encompassing warning has been relaxed in favor of a return to the standardized approach of individual ranking each country.
“As health and safety conditions improve in some countries and potentially worsen in others, the ministry is reverting to our previous system of country-specific travel advice (with levels 1 to 4 depending on country-specific conditions),” said the state department Publication indicated. This method would help give US travelers “more detailed information on the current status in each country,” according to the department.
The change was made because certain countries are doing better in their responses to the virus. “It was based on our realization that it was no longer correct to say global and to advise the risk in every country in the world, that we had to say that we no longer travel. There were individual countries where the risk had decreased . ” Carl Risch, the deputy secretary for consular affairs, said in a media conference on Thursday.
Officials also said the decision was made in “close consultation” with the disease control centers. “CDC continues to monitor every country in the world and if they find that a country is either improving or that a country is going the other way, they will let us know and we will in turn make the adjustments,” said Risch.
In the individual rankings, many countries remain under the warning level 4, but a large number are also under the loose recommendation “Level 3: Rethink travel”. Most European countries as well as large parts of Asia and Africa are classified at level 3. Most of the Middle East, South America, Russia and China are still under a Level 4 appraisal.
“We continue to recommend US citizens to exercise caution when traveling overseas as the pandemic is unpredictable,” the department press release said. Officials also advised any traveler planning to go abroad to enroll there Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) Receive notifications from US officials about the COVID-19 situation and other overseas emergencies.
For its part, the CDC advises that the best way to avoid contracting COVID-19 is to stay at home. The health department also has its own COVID-19 risk assessment by country. For the majority of nations around the world, the CDC has assigned the highest warning level, Level 3: COVID-19 risk is high. Seven countries have a Level 1 warning and are therefore considered low risk for travelers, including New Zealand, Fiji and Thailand. The CDC even lists 13 countries with no travel warnings, as the risk of contracting the virus is “very low”. This safest category includes Caribbean destinations such as the Cayman Islands, Dominica and the British Virgin Islands, as well as places such as Taiwan, Laos, Greenland and French Polynesia.
Even if the US pulls back travel restrictions on its citizens, American travelers are not welcome in many countries, including the whole EU Due to the way the outbreak continues to devastate almost every region of the US
Regardless, the unprecedented “do not travel” warning for all countries is unlikely to be introduced in the near future. “I think we would obviously follow CDC if they found the need to return to a global stance,” says Risch. “But at this point, because we have so many countries at different stages of disease management, I suspect it is us.” will keep the attitude from country to country. “
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