CDC Revamps Travel Health Notice System, No Countries in Level 4

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its Travel Health Notice system for international destinations. To help the public understand when the highest level of concern is most urgent, this new system will reserve Level 4 travel health notices for special circumstances, such as rapidly escalating case trajectory or extremely high case counts, emergence of a new variant of concern, or healthcare infrastructure collapse.

Levels 3, 2, and 1 will continue to be primarily determined by 28-day incidence or case counts. The new level system went into effect this week, and currently, there are no countries listed in “Level 4”. With this new configuration, travelers will have a more actionable alert for when they should not travel to a certain destination (Level 4), regardless of vaccination status, until we have a clearer understanding of the COVID-19 situation at that destination.

The overhaul of CDC’s Travel Health Notice system comes amid an everchanging landscape for Covid-19 restrictions, especially here at home. On Monday a federal judge struck down the mask mandate. Now many airlines and airports no longer require you to mask up when flying.

New System

In the new system, the Level 3 “high” risk category applies to destinations that have had more than 100 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days. That includes many European countries such as Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, and also Mexico Canada, Brazil and more. In all, there were just over 120 destinations at Level 3.

Destinations with the “Level 2: Covid-19 Moderate” designation have 50 to 100 Covid-19 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days. There are only 11 entries in this category, including Bolivia, Peru, South Africa, Turks and Caicos etc.

“Level 1: Covid-19 Low,” destinations must have 49 or fewer new cases per 100,000 residents over the past 28 days. That includes Colombia, Dominican Republic, India, Jamaica, Philippines and more. There are 55 destinations in Level 1.

You can see the full list of destinations here.