The year and more of the pandemic has brought with it all manner of travel restrictions, some so harsh as to limit people to their own neighborhoods, and some so broad as to put huge swaths of the world off-limits. But now, as some of the actual restrictions are lifting, it appears that the warnings are not.
And, it appears, the warnings that once gave everyone pause about planning any sort of travel are now increasingly falling on deaf ears as new advisories spread to avoid non-essential travel, or even—just as authorities have given a cautious green light to vaccinated travelers—to travel almost nowhere.
The U.S. State Department, using CDC metrics, recently extended its red-light don't-go warning to more than 80% of the world including all of Europe, the Americas, most of Asia and Africa and even Antarctica (which is on the list "because this country has not reported Covid-19 data and risk is unknown.")
But according to airlines, which are seeing a sharp rise in sales, and Travel Weekly, an industry paper that tracks travel trends, no one is taking it seriously. TW quotes a number of industry executives who report that their customers are booking hotels in the Caribbean, flights to Europe and more.
TW also quoted Prof. Robert Kwortnik of the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration "It's hard for the average person to make sense of the moving target that is CDC guidance," pointing out that CDC has told vaccinated travelers that they can now travel at low risk within the U.S. at the same time that they have classified the whole country as a Level 4 Covid-19 destination which means...don't go there.
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