US to issue COVID-19 travel warnings for 80 percent of countries

Officials will use CDC standards for health travel guidelines, vastly increasing ‘do not travel’ warnings for countries.

The State Department has urged Americans to reconsider any international travel they may have planned and said it would issue specific warnings not to visit roughly 80 percent of the world’s countries due to risks from the coronavirus pandemic. The US has not had a global advisory warning against international travel since August, when guidance was revoked by the administration of former president Donald Trump. The advice issued by the department is not a formal global advisory. Instead, it says the State Department will start using Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) standards as it prepares health and safety guidelines for individual countries. Because of those standards, about 80 percent of countries will be classified as “Level 4” or “do not travel.”