EU recommends fresh travel restrictions as Covid cases surge in US

The European Union has recommended member states to reinstate travel restrictions on U.S. visitors that were lifted as recently as June, as per latest media reports. As reported by Reuters, " this plan comes amid a Covid-19 surge fueled by the delta variant and a lack of reciprocity from American officials, who have not lifted the U.S. entry ban on EU citizens earlier this year." 

According to reports published by several news agency, "the EU is also removing five other nations from its nonbinding list of 23 nations exempted from travel restrictions:  Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro and North Macedonia. Countries reportedly retaining least restrictive status include Canada, Japan, Qatar and Ukraine." 

Recently, hospital admissions in the US for Covid-19 positive patients have reached high levels for the first time since January. The country's active caseload has reached more than 142,000 which is its all-time high. Death rates have reached an average of more than 1,000 per day.

Out of the whole population of America just over half of them are fully vaccinated against Covid-19. Last week, a study released by the US Centres of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said, "unvaccinated people are about 29 times more likely to be admitted to hospital with Covid-19 than those who are fully vaccinated."

Forbes reported, "according to the Brown School of Public Health’s risk assessment tracker, the level of infections in the U.S. is currently twice that of France, three times that of Spain and more than five times that of Italy."