The Caribbean destinations Saint Kitts and Nevis and Belize have been listed in the most dangerous level in the four-tier system aimed at assessing and managing pandemic risk, informed the US Center for Disease Control (CDC) Monday.
Other countries affected by the measure were Afghanistan, Albania, Grenada, Lithuania, Mauritius, Serbia and Slovenia.
This means that travelers should either reconsider traveling to any of these places or get fully vaccinated if the trip cannot be avoided.
The case of Afghanistan is different. Beyond its uncertain Covid-19 situation, the country has been in chaos since the U.S. withdrew its troops last month and the Taliban took control of the territory.
With the new additions, the U.S. has now red-listed 85 countries and territories.
How dangerous is traveling to Saint Kitts and Nevis and Belize now?
Contrary to what the CDC says, it’s not as dangerous as it looks.
A country is categorized as level 4 when the coronavirus incidence rate surpasses more than 500 cases per 100,000 population over the past 28 days.
With a little over than 53,000 inhabitants concentrated in a small two-island nation, it is difficult for Saint Kitts and Nevis not to have 500 cases.
But looking at the on the ground situation, they only have 650 active cases in the entire territory.
A similar situation happens with Belize where the number of active cases is only 1,781 in a country of 419,199 people.
On the other side of the fence, there’s a growing number of European and other countries adding the United States to their very own lists of unsafe places to visit.
So far, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, France and Spain have barred unvaccinated U.S. travelers while Sweden, Norway and Bulgaria have temporarily closed their doors to everyone coming from that territory.
At the same time, U.S. senators are passing a bill to require U.S. passengers to be vaccinated or bear a negative Covid-19 to be permitted to travel domestically.