CDC Now Warns These 4 Destinations Are ‘Very High’ Risk For Travelers To Contract COVID

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has raised the risk level for four destinations this week to a “very high” risk for travelers to contract or spread COVID.

Russia, Belgium, Burkina Faso and Slovakia moved to the Level 4 “very high” risk category, where the CDC warns travel is unsafe, especially if a person is not fully vaccinated against the virus.

The CDC warns that travel to these destinations should be avoided due to the COVID conditions, saying, “travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants.”

Russia, which was previously a Level 3 “high” risk country, has over 8.4 million cases of the coronavirus, with 39,321 new cases reported in the past day, according to Johns Hopkins University. A total of 1,124 new COVID deaths were also reported in the last day, data from the university indicated.

The CDC looks at the number of cases over the past 28 days and moves locations with more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days into the Level 4 “high risk” category.

Belgium has had over 1.3 million COVID cases, while Burkina Faso and Slovakia have reported over 14,700 and over 485,000 coronavirus cases, respectively, according to the university.

Other nations on the CDC’s Level 4 warning list include Austria, Barbados, Botswana, Croatia, Greece, Ireland, Maldives, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey and the U.K.

There were almost 80 countries listed at Level 4 as of Monday.

Also making a move on the CDC’s warning list as of Monday to Level 3 were Fiji and Jamaica, which both moved down from Level 4 to Level 3 “high” risk.

Level 3 is determined by the CDC as 100 to 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days.

Poland moved up from Level 2 “moderate” risk to “high” risk, while Laos, which was previously listed as an unknown destination due to a lack of information, has now been deemed “high” risk or Level 3 by the CDC.

No changes were made to the Level 2 category, which is designated “moderate” risk as 50 to 99 COVID cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days.