The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said it has dropped its "Do Not Travel" coronavirus recommendations for 90 countries and international regions.
The CDC said last week it was revising its travel recommendations and said it planned to reserve its Level 4 heath notices "for special circumstances, such as rapidly escalating case trajectory or extremely high case counts."
The countries were dropped to "Level 3: High." That level still discourages travel by unvaccinated Americans to places like the UK, France, Israel, Turkey, Australia, Greece, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain and Russia, according to Reuters.
Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central African Republic, Chile, Czech Republic, Jordan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Somalia, Uruguay and Vietnam are also being lowered to the Level 3 category.
There are currently no countries listed on the Level 4 category, which is titled “Do Not Travel.”
The US State Department also said it was planning to drastically lower the number of countries and regions on its “Do Not Travel” list.
Currently, 120 of the 215 countries and territories the US State Department ranks, 120 are on its “Do Not Travel” list.
The department said it planned to leave about 10 per cent of the countries and regions currently on the list at the “Do Not Travel” level.
“We believe the updated framework will help U.S. citizens make better informed decisions about the safety of international travel,” the department said in a statement.
The Biden administration has been under pressure from airlines to lift Covid-test requirements for international travel. Republicans have also been pressing the Biden administration to drop mask mandates for travel on public transportation and on airlines and trains.
Critics of the mandates have argued that with states and the federal government rolling back mask mandates, there is no longer a need for masking on transportation.
On Monday, a US district judge in Tampa voided the national mask mandate for airplanes and other public transportation, but it is currently unclear how the ruling will impact travelers.
The mask mandate, which was announced in January 2021, expired on Monday. However, the CDC announced it planned to extend the mandate by 15 days to allow for more study of the recent BA.2 omicron subvariant of the coronavirus. That vairant has become the dominant one in the majority of US cases.
