The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added 22 countries to its advisory list against travel on Tuesday. The countries are now listed under the highest warning level, level 4, due to rising cases of the Wuhan coronavirus.
According to a report from Reuters, some of the countries are Israel, Australia, Albania, Argentina, Uruguay, Panama, Qatar, the Bahamas, Bahrain, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos Islands, Suriname, Egypt, Saint Lucia, and Bolivia.
“The level 4 rating now has more than 100 countries as nations struggle to combat the highly contagious omicron variant,” The Hill reported. “The CDC advises that level 4 countries be avoided at all costs and a person be fully vaccinated if they do have to go to them.”
In November, President Biden instituted travel restrictions to several nations in south Africa, where the Omicron variant emerged. This occurred around the time the first Omicron case in the United States was discovered in San Francisco. The individual infected had traveled to the U.S. from an African country days prior.
A month later, Biden rescinded the travel restrictions, as I covered, as cases continued to climb. The travel restrictions officially ended on Friday, Dec. 31.
“The travel restrictions imposed by that proclamation [banning travel to African countries] are no longer necessary to protect the public health," Biden said in a proclamation. "Since I issued that proclamation, our Nation's health officials, in collaboration with the South African scientists who originally reported the variant, have made substantial progress in understanding the Omicron variant.”
Earlier this month, the CDC issued a warning against traveling to Canada, citing “very high” levels of COVID-19.