The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and State Department advised against travel to Turkey on Monday due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in that country but relaxed their advisories for India.

The CDC increased Turkey’s COVID-19 risk level to “Level 4: Very High,” while the State Department issued a parallel “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered India to “Level 2: Moderate,” while the State Department lowered India to “Level 2: Exercise Increased Caution.”

US President Joe Biden imposed new travel restrictions on India on April 30 in response to COVID-19, prohibiting the majority of non-US citizens who had been in India within the previous 14 days from entering the United States.

There are no travel restrictions in the United States for travellers from Turkey.

Apart from India, the United States currently denies entry to the majority of non-US citizens who have spent the previous 14 days in the United Kingdom, the 26 Schengen countries in Europe without internal border controls, or Ireland, China, South Africa, Iran, or Brazil.

Currently, the CDC has issued travel advisories for more than 70 countries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the US State Department reduced the COVID-19 travel advisory for Canada to “Level 2” last week.

Despite the change, the US government has made no indication that it will ease any COVID-19 restrictions.

On Aug. 5, White House coronavirus response coordinator Jeff Zients reiterated that in light of “the Delta variant,” the United States would “maintain the existing travel restrictions at this point.”

For the first time in 16 months, Canada opened its borders to fully vaccinated American tourists on Aug. 9. The US has not relaxed any restrictions on non-essential foreign nationals crossing its land borders with Mexico and Canada.

The current restrictions in the United States have been repeatedly extended in 30-day increments and are expected to be extended again before they expire on Aug. 21.

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