Passengers check in for Delta Airlines flights and pass a TSA security checkpoint ahead of the Thanksgiving vacation and amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic at Boston Logan International Airport , Massachusetts, United States, November 22, 2021.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the State Department on Monday advised against travel to Germany and Denmark due to a growing number of COVID-19 cases in those countries.
The CDC raised its travel recommendation to “Level four: very high” for the two European countries, telling Americans they should avoid traveling there, while the State Department has issued parallel “Ne not travel ”for both countries.
The CDC currently lists around 75 destinations worldwide at level four, with many European countries on the list including Austria, Great Britain, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, Romania, Ireland and the Czech Republic.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel told leaders of her Conservative Party that measures taken to stop the spread of the coronavirus in Europe’s largest economy were insufficient and that stronger measures must be taken, Reuters reported on Monday. Read more
The number of cases in Germany has skyrocketed, especially among the elderly whose first two injections of the COVID-19 vaccine took place earlier this year, and among children who are not eligible for vaccination.
Earlier this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) said European countries must redouble their efforts to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as deaths and new cases rise.
Current transmission rates in 53 European countries are a “serious concern” and new cases are approaching record levels, exacerbated by the more transmissible Delta variant of the virus, warned Hans Kluge of the WHO. “We need to change our tactics, to react to outbreaks of COVID-19, to prevent them from happening in the first place,” he said.
Germany has already decided to limit much of public life in areas where hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients.
Neighboring Austria imposed a full COVID-19 lockdown on Monday after announcing new restrictions last week. Acting German Health Minister Jens Spahn warned on Friday that Germany could follow suit.
The CDC has separately lowered its COVID-19 travel advisory from level four to “level three: low” for Israel, Aruba, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Curacao and Guadeloupe.
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