The U.S. State Department on Monday urged against travel to Japan and Sri Lanka due to a new wave of COVID-19 infections, saying those two nations will now fall under the department’s “Level 4: Do Not Travel” advisory. 

“This week, the following Travel Advisories have been assessed and reissued with updates, raised to a Level 4 - Do Not Travel: Japan, Sri Lanka,” the State Department said on Monday.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a new alert that Americans should avoid all travel to Japan and advised anyone who does have to visit the country to get vaccinated prior to traveling there.

“Because of the current situation in Japan even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants and should avoid all travel to Japan,” it added.

This comes few months before the Olympics are set to be held in Tokyo in July. The Olympics were already postponed once due to the pandemic.

Japan has been witnessing a surge in Covid-19 cases as it reported over seven hundred thousand coronavirus infections till Sunday ahead of the Olympic Games.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday, the country registered 7,14,274 confirmed cases and 12,236 deaths till yesterday (Sunday). As of May 15, a total of 5,593,436 vaccine doses have been administered in the country.

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka 2,971 new Covid-19 cases were reported on Monday. Till Monday, a total of 167,172 C-19 cases have been reported in the country.

-Agencies