On Thursday, August 6th, the U.S. State Department lifted its advisory that warned U.S. citizens to not travel abroad.
The Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory went into effect on March 19th. This highest level of travel advisory, to urge Americans to not travel overseas, was put into place due to the coronavirus pandemic.
From the Level 4 advisory: “U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19” and urged Americans “in countries where commercial departure options remain available” to “arrange for immediate return to the United States, unless they are prepared to remain abroad for an indefinite period.”
From today, “(w)ith 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 (with Levels from 1-4 depending on country-specific conditions), in order to give travelers detailed and actionable information to make informed travel decisions,” said a note from the State Department.
“This will also provide U.S. citizens more detailed information about the current status in each country,” the note continued. “We continue to recommend U.S. citizens exercise caution when traveling abroad due to the unpredictable nature of the pandemic.”
This change, as reported in Bloomberg, CNN and other publications, makes sense. We’re in a world where the virus status of each country changes continually, based on compliance of its citizens, its visitors, as well as other factors. With no definitive end to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus in sight, it makes more sense for the State Department to advise about each country’s virus status, just as it does about other dangers, which are sometimes also ever changing.
Of course, right now there are only a handful of countries that will accept American citizens, so even if it’s “safe” to go to them, they won’t take us anyway. Hopefully our own virus status will eventually improve.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
