The CDC only adds one new destination to its higher risk category for travel

(CNN) Vietnam was the only destination added to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s highest-risk level 4 category for travel on Monday.

The “very high” risk category still contains more destinations than all the other levels taken together, with nearly 140 places now at Level 4. At the beginning of January, there were about 80 destinations listed there.

The CDC places a destination at “Level 4: Covid-19 Very High” risk when more than 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants have been registered in the last 28 days.

To summarize, a single destination was added to Level 4 on February 28:

Vietnam

Vietnam was previously ranked at Level 3, or “high” risk.

Global case numbers have been declining since the peak in late January, but experts warn that the pandemic is not over.

New Zealand, which has had relatively few cases with Covid due to strict pandemic controls, recorded a record number of cases last week. The country remained at Level 3 of “high” risk on Monday after climbing from Level 2 last week.

Vietnam moved into the CDC’s highest risk category for travel on Monday. Here, a magnificent landscape of rice fields with terraces is featured in the northern Yen Bai province.

Nhac Nguyen / AFP via Getty Images

CDC: Avoid level 4 destinations

The CDC advises avoiding travel to Level 4 countries. The CDC thresholds for travel health notifications are based primarily on the number of Covid-19 cases in a destination.

Other favorites of tourists stuck at Level 4 for a month or more include Mexico, Canada, France, Peru, Singapore and Spain. The UK has been there since July 2021.

Changes in level 3

Category 3 “high” risk category – which applies to destinations that have had between 100 and 500 cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 28 days – without three additions on Monday. They were:

Comoros
Hong Kong
So Tom and Prncipe

The move was good news for the Comoros, an archipelago off the east coast of Africa, and So Tom and Prncipe, an island nation off the west coast of Central Africa, both of which had previously been at level 4.

Levels 2, 1 and unknown

Destinations bearing the designation “Level 2: Moderate Covid-19” have seen 50 to 99 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 28 days.

There was a lot of good news for Africa on Monday. Nine destinations, including Ghana and Uganda, previously listed in Level 3, were moved to the “moderate” category of Level 2.

In total, 10 destinations dropped to level 2 on Monday. The tenth, Montserrat, is a British foreign territory in the Caribbean.

Here are 10 destinations relocated to Level 2 on February 28th:

Ivory Coast
Ghana
Lesotho
Liberia
mountain
Montserrat
Republic of the Congo
RWANDA
Togo
Uganda

To be in “Level 1: Covid-19 low”, a destination must have less than 50 new cases per 100,000 inhabitants in the last 28 days.

Niger was the only destination that moved to Level 1 on Monday. The country on the west coast of Africa was previously ranked at Level 2. There are currently only five destinations in the category, including China, which recently hosted the Winter Olympics.

Finally, there are destinations for which the CDC has an “unknown” risk due to lack of information. Usually, but not always, these are small, remote places or places with constant wars or riots. There were no additions to the category on Monday.

Tanzania, Cambodia and Macau are among the most visited countries currently listed in the unknown category. The CDC advises not to travel to these countries precisely because the risks are unknown.

A medical expert assesses the risk levels

Transmission rates are “a guide” for passenger personal risk calculations, according to CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen.

“We are entering a phase of the pandemic where people have to make their decisions based on their medical circumstances, as well as their risk tolerance when it comes to contracting Covid-19,” Wen said in mid-February.

“You have to interpret Level 4 to say that this is a multi-broadcast site in the Covid-19 community. So if you go, there is a higher chance that you could get infected with the coronavirus,” said Wen, who is an emergency physician and professor of health policy and management at the School of Public Health of the Milken Institute of George Washington University.

Some people will decide that the risk is too high for them, Wen said. “Other people will say, ‘Because I’m vaccinated and adult, I’m willing to take that risk.”

“So this really has to be a personal decision that people weigh in realizing that now the CDC is classifying different levels based on community broadcasting norms, and basically just that,” Wen said. “They are not taking into account individual circumstances.”

Top image: Tourists take a boat tour across the Thu Bon River on April 24, 2021, in Hoi An, Vietnam. (Linh Pham / Getty Images).