Attention, travelers from the US wanting to visit Europe: the European Union has now reportedly taken the US off its safe travel list.
The delta variant has rampaged all over the United States, prompting the European Union to issue a new restriction for travelers coming from the US.
The EU had lifted travel restrictions for Americans last June ahead of the year’s tourism season. But it seems as though the Union isn’t taking any risks as the daily average for hospital admissions has risen past 100,000 for the first time since last winter.
However, this recommendation doesn’t apply to Britain, which formally left the EU at the beginning of the year and opened its borders to fully vaccinated travelers from the U.S. earlier this month.
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United States remains on Britain’s “amber” travel list, which means the UK will permit entry to fully vaccinated adults and they do not have to self-isolate.
However, travelers are noted to adhere to the requirement of a COVID-19 test three days before arrival in the U.K. and another test due two days after arriving.
The US still has not reopened its borders to the UK, despite the Biden admin calling for the travel lift. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the absence of reciprocity would not be allowed to “drag on for weeks”.
The pandemic has not laid it easy on medical staff and healthcare workers as hospitals are still filling up with patients needing medical care every single day. Roughly one in five intensive care units have reached at least 95% capacity, reports say.
In the US, more than 142,000 patients are still in hospital beds– a rate not seen since last January. With new variants popping up, it seems that this number isn’t going down any time soon.
Florida alone has more than 16,000 Covid-19 patients in hospital – the most of any state – followed by Texas and California, according to data from the US Department of Health and Human Services.
U.S. coronavirus deaths have been over 1,200 a day for several days, seven times higher than they were in early July.
The EU’s safe travel list is updated regularly based on the country’s coronavirus infection levels. Along with the US, the EU had also barred entry to travelers coming from Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, and North Macedonia.
