USA Puts 80% of World on Do Not Travel List

Where not to go next – the USA has added 116 countries to the official Level Four: Do Not Travel advisory list for safety reasons, which means 80% of the world is not recommended for Americans to visit now.

The list includes the United Kingdom, Canada, France, Israel, Finland, Egypt, Belgium, Turkey, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Spain, Mexico, Germany, Indonesia, Haiti and others on the list, citing a “very high level of COVID-19.”

Additional countries, including Iceland, China and Hong Kong, New Zealand and Japan, remain at Level 3: Reconsider Travel.

These recommendations are not mandatory and do not prohibit Americans from travel – so long as the other country will admit you, and you are willing to take the chance of visiting a country with a high rate of infection, where medical facilities might be strained.

Canada, for one, is not currently admitting US citizens.

And the USA has been barring nearly all non-U.S. citizens who have recently been in most of Europe, China, Brazil, Iran and South Africa.

The USA also has extended by a further 30 days restrictions in place for 13 months that bar non-essential travel at its Canadian and Mexican borders.

See the full list – alphabetically by country – here.

While India is not on the US Level 4 list, it is being placed on England’s “do not visit” Red List, according to the travel industry publication Tour and Travel World.

According to the latest decision, international visitors who have departed from or transited through India in the previous ten days will be refused entry into England.

The CDC recently said that fully vaccinated people could safely travel within the United States at “low risk,” even as its director, Rochelle Walensky, discouraged Americans from doing so because of high coronavirus cases nationwide.

The State Department Level 4 announcement is a further discouragement to travel, and “reflects an adjustment in the State Department’s Travel Advisory system to rely more on (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s) existing epidemiological assessments.’

Nick Calio, who heads Airlines for America, a trade group representing major U.S. carriers, told a U.S. Senate panel  that policymakers needed to find a “road map” to reopening international travel.

Earlier this month, the CDC said fully vaccinated people could safely travel within the United States at “low risk,” but its director, Rochelle Walensky, discouraged Americans from doing so because of high coronavirus cases nationwide.