BRUSSELS (AP) – The European Union plans to recommend that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on U.S. tourists due to rising levels of coronavirus infection there, EU diplomats said Monday.
The decision to remove the United States from a safe list of countries for non-essential travel would reverse the advice from June, when the bloc recommended lifting restrictions on U.S. travelers before the tourist season summer.
According to EU diplomats, the guide could arrive as early as this week. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the review process was still ongoing.
However, any decision would not be binding. The EU has no unified COVID-19 tourism policy and national governments have the authority to decide whether to keep borders open to American tourists. Possible restrictions may include quarantine, other proof-of-arrival requirements, or even a total ban on all non-essential travel from the United States.
The United States has not yet reopened its own borders to EU tourists, despite requests from the bloc for the Biden administration to lift its ban.
The European Council updates the list based on criteria related to coronavirus infection levels. It is reviewed every two weeks. The threshold for being on the EU list is to have no more than 75 new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 14 days.
Last week, in the United States, new cases exceeded 152,000 daily on average, turning the clock until the end of January, and the number of COVID-19 patients hospitalized was about 85,000, a number not seen. since early February.
Coronavirus deaths in the U.S. have been more than 1,200 a day for several days, seven times higher than in early July.
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