EU set to advise restrictions on US travelers citing coronavirus transmission

The European Union is poised to tell member states they should reimpose travel restrictions on Americans due to the worsening COVID-19 situation in the U.S., where daily hospitalizations for the disease are averaging 100,000 for the first time since the winter surge.

The 27-nation bloc eased most restrictions on U.S. travelers ahead of the summer tourism season, but EU diplomats told Reuters a reversal is on its way this week.

In effect, the U.S. would be removed from the bloc’s “safe list” of countries, triggering potential restrictions on non-essential travel, additional testing or quarantine measures on travelers who would normally breeze in by showing a negative test or proof of vaccination.

The guidance will be non-binding, so individual nations are free to impose their own rules.

Countries on the EU’s safe list are supposed to have fewer than 75 cases per 100,000 persons, but the U.S. rate is much higher, at 333 per 100,000 over the past week.

The EU had been trying to encourage tourism after a brutal pandemic, but the U.S. did not reciprocate by easing its own rules, angering some Europeans.

Europe plans to crack down on U.S. visitors as hospitals fill to capacity and federal officials plead with tens of millions of eligible Americans to come forward and lift the nationwide vaccination rate of 52%.

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