CDC Adds Three Top-Notch Destinations to Level 4 List

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moved three high-profile destinations to its highest-risk Level 4 category for travel earlier this week.

Hong Kong and New Zealand have spent much of the pandemic in near isolation with relatively few infections and had been lauded as COVID-19 success stories. However, the Omicron variant has caused massive spikes in cases in both places.

Hong Kong is late in playing out a now-familiar scene: Morgues near capacity, hospitals overwhelmed and supermarkets stripped bare by shoppers. Hong Kong has tightly restricted travel since the start of the pandemic and recently suspended many incoming international flights.

The spike comes in New Zealand just as it is beginning to shift toward plans to open up its borders to select international vacationers later this year. It has maintained some of the strictest isolation measures in the world during the pandemic.

Joining those two is Thailand, one of the crown jewels of world travel and the No. 1 Asian earner of tourism revenue in 2019. Thailand restarted its “Test & Go” program on February 1, which allows vaccinated international travellers from all countries to enter without lengthy quarantines.

The CDC places a destination at “Level 4: COVID-19 Very High” risk when more than 500 cases per 100,000 residents are registered in the past 28 days.

To recap, the destinations added to Level 4 on March 7 are Hong Kong, New Zealand and Thailand. All three destinations were previously listed at Level 3, considered “high” risk. Global case numbers have been declining since peaking in late January, but experts caution that the pandemic is not over.