The United States Department of State and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated their respective travel advisory lists in response to the continuous changes of transmission rates for COVID and monkeypox infections.
This past April, the State Department announced it would modify how it designated “Level 4: Do Not Travel” countries, which was almost exclusively used to designate countries with high communicable danger of COVID. Now in August, another round of changes were made.
The State Department downgraded the COVID and monkeypox risk to a “Level 3: Reconsider Travel” designation. Like the CDC’s ratings, a Level 3 designation is when a country has over 100 positive cases of COVID or monkeypox for every 100,000 residents in the past 28 days. A Level 4 designation will now be reserved in the event a country poses an unprecedented risk of transmission for either illness.
As for Levels 2 and 1, they are considered "moderate" and "low" risk, respectively.
Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at George Washington University said that inoculation is the most important safety measure for travel since unvaccinated travelers are more likely to become ill and transmit COVID-19 to others.
While U.S.-bound travelers are not required to present a negative COVID-19 test to get home from international destinations, the CDC still recommends testing before boarding flights back to the U.S. and not traveling if you are sick or have any symptoms.
Travelers with symptoms or who test positive for COVID-19 should follow the CDC's isolation guidelines and click here for travel-specific health situations not related to COVID-19. Also, if you are traveling internationally, check the State Department’s Travel Advisories web page for updates.