CDC adds Thailand, New Zealand and Hong Kong to Level 4 advisory

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has moved Hong Kong, New Zealand and Thailand to its Level 4 Covid travel advisory list.

The CDC recommends that US citizens ‘avoid travel to destinations’ which are a Level 4 Covid risk – which it classifies as being any country which registers more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days.

The three new countries join an all-star cast of countries that includes Vietnam (added to the list last week), Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Japan, Peru, Singapore, the UK, and many more.

All three countries have had recent surges in cases

All three countries have experienced significant surges of coronavirus in recent weeks, largely driven by the milder but more virulent Omicron variant.

Thailand, a key tourist hotspot, has seen a surge in Covid cases since the new year, with 22,073 new Covid cases and 69 more deaths reported for 8 March. For the same day, Hong Kong reported 58,757 cases and 291 deaths. New Zealand also recorded 22,466 new cases, as well as four deaths.

Both Hong Kong and New Zealand have encountered recent spikes in the Omicron variant in recent weeks, despite having spent most of the pandemic isolated with severe border restrictions in place, and with relatively few infections over the past two years.

New Zealand recently initiated plans to begin easing its tight border restrictions. However, despite this, most Covid cases reported in the country have been domestic, rather than being registered by international travellers.

The CDC’s Level 4 list now includes a total of 135 countries and territories. While this represents an overall fall in numbers compared with around 140 destinations in February, there are still more places in Level 4 than in all other categories.