Americans have been advised to not travel to two more countries in the Schengen Area – Switzerland and Estonia – after a spike up in the number of Coronavirus cases detected in both.
Updating the Travel Advisory, which is reviewed every week, the US Department of State has changed the level of advice against travel Switzerland and Estonia from “Reconsider Travel” to “Do Not Travel”, which is the highest advisory level due to the greater likelihood of life-threatening risks, SchengenVisaInfo.com reports.
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued a Level 4 Travel Health Notice for Estonia due to COVID-19, indicating a very high level of COVID-19 in the country,” reads the advisory updated on August 30.
The same also notes for US citizens wishing to travel to these countries in spite of the advisory that being vaccinated with a vaccine authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration lowers the risk of contracting COVID-19 and developing severe symptoms. So far, the FDA has approved only Pfizer, Moderna and Janssen vaccines against COVID-19.
The Department of State has issued the same Travel Advisory for Switzerland as well.
Data by the World Health Organization show that since the beginning of the pandemic, Switzerland -which is home to a population of 8.545 million – has recorded a total of 773,583 COVID-19 cases, only six of which in the last 24 hours.
Estonia, which counts 1.325 million residents, has registered 357 cases in the last 24 hours, bringing the number of COVID-19 infections detected since the beginning of the pandemic to 141,956.
Only within the month of August, SchengenVisaInfo.com reported that the US first advised its citizens to not travel to Greece, Ireland and Malta on August 2, and then on August 9, it advised against travel to France and Iceland. The advice on travel to these countries has, however, changed since then.
The list of EU and Schengen Area countries, for which there is currently a Do Not Travel advisory goes as follows:
Cyprus, since July 26
Estonia, since August 30
France, since August 9
Greece, since August 2
Iceland, since August 23
Ireland, since August 2
Malta, since August 2
The Netherlands, since June 17
Portugal, since July 26
Spain, since July 26
Switzerland, since August 30
On Monday, August 30, the EU Council recommended to the Member States to reimpose an entry ban on non-essential restriction-free travel from the United States, after the same move was warned for more than a week, due to the increase in the number of COVID cases in the US.
https://www.schengenvisainfo.c...
