State Department lifted its worldwide health advisory and returned to country-specific warnings
FRIDAY, Aug. 7, 2020 (HealthDay News) — On Thursday, the Trump administration canceled its warnings against international travel because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reported.
Conditions no longer call for a blanket worldwide alert, the administration said. The State Department lifted its worldwide health advisory and returned to country-specific warnings, the AP said. This came after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention changed its COVID-19 travel advisory. The CDC lifted “do not travel” warnings for some 20 locations but advised staying away from most places in the world.
“With health and safety conditions improving in some countries and potentially deteriorating in others, the department is returning to our previous system of country-specific levels of travel advice in order to give travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions,” the State Department said in a statement. “This will also provide U.S. citizens more detailed information about the current status in each country. We continue to recommend U.S. citizens exercise caution when traveling abroad due to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.”
The CDC revised its warning saying the changes were made because the virus was spreading in different places, the AP said. Seven places, including Thailand, Fiji, and New Zealand, are low-risk, the CDC said. But older adults and those with certain underlying medical conditions should talk to their doctors before making the trip. More than a dozen countries require no precautions, including Taiwan, Greenland, and Laos. But the CDC still advises against nonessential travel to more than 200 other international locations, the AP reported. And because the United States has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world, many countries are currently barring entry to Americans.
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