U.S. travelers removed from safe travel list to Europe

Earlier today, The European Union (EU) recommended banning Americans from non-essential travel to its member states.

This development—which occurred less than two months after the EU decided to open its borders to American travelers — is a response to the surge in COVID-19 cases currently affecting the U.S.

According to data from Johns Hopkins, cases rose to their highest point since January last week, with an average of 152,000 new infections being reported per day. The pace at which cases are rising is beginning to slow down but transmissions, hospitalizations, and deaths are still high.

Over 30 countries could now restrict U.S. tourists from visiting

The 27 countries that make up the EU, in addition to five other countries (Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, and the Republic of North Macedonia) have all been cautioned against allowing entry for U.S tourists. This guidance is not binding for members of the EU.

Although The European council removed the U.S from its safe travel list, each individual government within an EU nation is permitted to allow nonessential travel for fully vaccinated Americans if they so choose.

The European Council reviews its safe travel list every two weeks. Meaningful updates are based on case numbers. The threshold for being on the EU list is having not more than 75 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants over the last two weeks.

Some countries within the EU may choose to impose stricter guidelines for incoming residents of nations not on the council’s safe travel list as opposed to an outright ban.

“Nonessential travel to the EU from countries or entities not listed is subject to temporary travel restriction,” the council said in a statement. “This is without prejudice to the possibility for member states to lift the temporary restriction on nonessential travel to the EU for fully vaccinated travelers.”

The EU comprises the following countries:

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden.

COVID and the Economy

The present rise in COVID-19 cases is being driven by the Delta variant of the virus. In addition to being more transmissive and reportedly inducing more severe manifestations of COVID in unvaccinated populations, the new strain is the most dominant strain in the U.S.

Governments within the EU will have to decide if an outright travel ban on Americans is worth the billions of dollars they will lose in tourism revenue.

A report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was published on June 30th and indicated that the global economy lost more than $4 trillion between 2020 and 2021 due to travel restrictions.

“Tourism is a lifeline for millions, and advancing vaccination to protect communities and support tourism’s safe restart is critical to the recovery of jobs and generation of much-needed resources, especially in developing countries, many of which are highly dependent on international tourism,”
UNWTO Secretary-General Zurab Pololikashvili.

Whether because of consumer confidence, commercial limitations, or some combination of both, it’s becoming more and more apparent that the status of COVID-19 and the health of the economy, both global and domestic, are beholden to one another.

2021 may be a redemptive year for many nations who were slow to impose travel bans last year and then paid the price.

“What is going on now is both entirely predictable, but entirely preventable. And you know we know we have the wherewithal with vaccines to turn this around,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government’s top infectious diseases expert. “We could turn this around and we could do it efficiently and quickly if we just get those people vaccinated.”