Effective Monday, April 18^th, the CDC has updated its Travel Health Notice system for international travel.

The new system reserves Level 4 travel health notices for special circumstances, such as “rapidly escalating case trajectory or extremely high case counts, emergence of a new variant of concern, or healthcare infrastructure collapse”. Levels 3, 2, and 1 will continue to be primarily determined by 28-day incidence or case counts.

Currently, Level 4 — the highest level – are those counties the CDC deems a very high level of COVID incidence and recommends avoidance by all travelers, even those fully vaccinated.

Prior to this change, 89 countries are on the CDC’s Level 4 list, including most of Europe.

These changes are taking place as the spring and summer travel season moves into high gear with predictions of disruptions due to airline and hotel staffing, continued concern over Covid, and the public’s confusion of travel restrictions and mandates internationally.