CDC drops traveler health notices for individual countries

The CDC has announced that it will no longer keep track of a list of coronavirus-related travel warnings broken down by nation. (WIS) By CNN staff

One of the federal government's pandemic responses has been abandoned.

The COVID-19 travel health notices that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had been distributing country by country since the beginning of the pandemic were discontinued on Monday.

The cause is that fewer nations are conducting COVID-19 cases reporting or virus testing. The CDC claims that this makes it more difficult to estimate the risk of travelers.

According to CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund, the organization will only publish a travel health advisory for a specific nation if an event, like a concerning new virus variant, modifies the CDC's travel advice for that nation.

The CDC continues to advise travellers to follow the advice on its international travel page and to keep their vaccination records current.

This page categorises nations into three groups: use standard precautions, use enhanced precautions, or avoid unnecessary travel.

Early in the pandemic, restrictions like testing and quarantine needs significantly slowed international travel, but many countries eventually lifted those restrictions for fully vaccinated people and encouraged people to increase tourism.

People who had recently visited any of more than three dozen countries were prohibited from entering the United States in early 2020, before vaccines were available. Instead, the U.S. started requiring COVID-19 tests to be negative shortly before boarding flights to the U.S. in 2021. Later on, that restriction was also removed.