SAWT BEIRUT INTERNATIONAL

| 28 March 2024, Thursday |

U.S. CDC advises Americans to avoid travel to Canada

Because of an increase in COVID-19 cases, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a travel warning to Canada on Monday.

The CDC has raised its travel warning for Canada to “Level Four: Very High,” advising Americans to stay away from the country’s northern neighbor. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified over 80 sites throughout the world as Level Four. On Monday, it also upgraded the island of Curaçao to Level Four.

In November, the US eased restrictions on fully vaccinated foreign citizens crossing its land borders with Canada and Mexico, putting an end to historic limitations on non-essential visitors in effect since March 2020 to combat the COVID-19 epidemic.

Canada remains one of the top foreign destinations for Americans.

The Canadian government did not immediately comment Monday.

Last month, Canada’s government implored residents not to leave the country for non-essential travel.

Canada advised residents in March 2020 not to travel abroad for non-essential reasons like tourism. It withdrew the notice in October – before the first Omicron cases were reported – citing the success of vaccination campaigns.

The CDC on Monday also lowered travel recommendations from Level Four to “Level 3: High” to Armenia, Belarus, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. It also rate Singapore as “Level 3,” after it previously was listed as unknown.

The CDC says Americans should be fully vaccinated before traveling to Level 3 destinations.

COVID-19 hospitalizations in the United States reached a fresh high of 132,646, according to a Reuters tally on Monday, surpassing the record of 132,051 set in January last year, amid a surge of the highly contagious Omicron variant.

    Source:
  • Reuters