Grenada gets region’s only travel warning downgrade

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), while downgrading its travel notice for Grenada to level one, warns United States citizens against flying to much of the Caribbean amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak sweeping the region.

Grenada, which had its notice updated last Monday (March 15), joins Anguilla, St Kitts and Nevis, the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands among five ‘low risk’ territories. The Atlanta-based CDC added that American nationals must continue to take steps before, during and after travel to limit the chance of contracting COVID-19.

Elsewhere across the Caribbean, Dominica and Bermuda have jumped up to a ‘moderate’, level two warning, while Trinidad and Tobago’s designation has improved slightly to join the two islands at the CDC recommendation to avoid non-essential travel.

The Bahamas is the only Caribbean country listed at level three, which the US agency categorises as ‘high risk’.

The CDC still places its level four or ‘very high risk’ on the following countries: US Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, Puerto Rico, Turks and Caicos Islands, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda, Sint Maarten, Haiti, Guadeloupe, St Lucia, St Martin, St Vincent and the Grenadines, French Guiana, Aruba, Saint-Barthélemy, Belize and Curaçao.

Martinique, with an ‘unknown’ classification owing to incomplete data for analysis, was also placed at ‘high risk’ as the CDC advised Americans against travelling to the French-Caribbean island.

• See related article: 19 Caribbean nations slapped with ‘Level 4’ CDC travel warning