On Monday, U.S. authorities recommended that their citizens avoid traveling to ten countries, including France and Portugal, despite them having some of the best vaccination rates in Europe amid a new pandemic wave in the continent. The U.S. State Department issued a new advisory urging Americans to "avoid travel to France," raising the travel warning for this country to level four, the highest level, as Christmas and New Year approach, amid the spread of the "Omicron" variant.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the main health agency in the United States, stated, "Given the current situation (related to COVID-19) in France, even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading the variants." The list of countries covered by the CDC's warning includes, in addition to France and Portugal, Cyprus, Andorra, and Liechtenstein in Europe, as well as Jordan and Tanzania.
The State Department added Mali and Fiji to this list, as both announced their first cases of Omicron on Monday.
