After two years of warning travelers to avoid visiting a very long list of countries deemed to be "high risk" for coronavirus infection, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has dropped them all from its list.
The change happened Monday because the CDC revised its international COVID-19 travel advisory system and now reserves its most serious warning category, Level 4, for extreme situations like "rapidly escalating case trajectory or extremely high case counts, emergence of a new variant of concern, and health care infrastructure collapse," the CDC said in an update. Previously, the agency determined which countries warranted Level 4 warnings based on counts of new coronavirus cases.
The U.S. Travel Association and airline executives have asked the CDC and the Biden administration to ease restrictions and mask mandates for international travel in order to help airlines bounce back from a steep loss of business during the pandemic. A judge struck down the federal mask mandate for public transportation Monday, prompting many airlines to immediately drop their mask requirements.
Before the CDC revised its advisory system Monday, more than 90 countries were in the Level 4 category, including Costa Rica, France and Iceland.
Levels 1, 2 and 3 in the system continue to be determined primarily by new-case counts over the most recent 28 days. Countries and territories with a "high level of COVID-19" (currently, 122 of them) are put in Level 3, and those with a "moderate level of COVID-19" are put in Level 2 (currently, a dozen). (The United States also qualifies for Level 3.)
Travelers who are not fully vaccinated are advised to avoid traveling to Level 2 or Level 3 countries entirely, and people with weak immune systems are advised to speak to their doctors about how to stay safe when traveling there.
Countries with a "low level of COVID-19" — currently, 55 of them — are put in Level 1, and the CDC recommends that travelers be up to date with vaccines before visiting them.
Some 48 countries and territories are not assigned any level in the travel advisory system because not enough data was available. The CDC warns travelers who are not fully vaccinated to avoid such places. Many are small and remote, but some are tourist destinations.
Although there are no longer any blanket "do not travel" warnings related to the coronavirus, travelers should still be aware that many countries have pandemic-related entry requirements. And the CDC has issued warnings over issues unrelated to the coronavirus, like the lack of medical infrastructure in Venezuela and polio in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
The State Department said last week that it would adjust its own travel advisories and would no longer automatically correlate its guidance with the CDC's. Even so, if the CDC assigns a country to Level 4 because of pandemic risk, the State Department's travel advisory for that destination will also rise to Level 4.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
