Yahoo Finance CDC, State Department Issue 'Do Not Travel' Advisories for Spain, Portugal amid COVID Surges
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As summer travel gets back into full swing amid lessened COVID regulations, jet setters are warned against traveling to certain international destinations.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the State Department have issued travel advisories for Spain, Portugal, Cyprus and Kyrgyzstan, as COVID cases escalate in those countries.
The CDC has raised the advisory to "Level Four: Very High," recommending that Americans avoid travel to these locations, for which they note "even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants." In addition to the CDC's "Level Four" advisory, the State Department also issued "Do Not Travel" advisories, which are the highest advisories for each department.
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The new advisories came as the CDC also escalated Cuba to "Level Four," following the lead of the State Department, who already classified the island nation as "Do Not Travel."
Meanwhile, the CDC has raised Armenia and Israel, the West Bank and Gaza to "Level Three: High," noting that "unvaccinated travelers should avoid nonessential travel" to those destinations, which the State Department has also put at "Level 3: Reconsider Travel."
With the United Kingdom recently raised to "Level Four" as well, the White House said on Friday that the United States will not lift travel restrictions on incoming tourism "at this point," as the highly contagious Delta variant continues to spread across the country.
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"Given where we are today with the Delta variant, the United States will maintain existing travel restrictions at this point," White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said. "Driven by the Delta variant, cases are rising here at home, particularly among those who are unvaccinated, and [they] appear likely to continue to increase in the weeks ahead."
Air travel previously reached a pandemic-era high, with more than 7.1 million people passing through airport security over Memorial Day weekend, which was up nearly 450 percent from the same weekend in 2020.
