Four Dutch Caribbean territories were added to the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) “Level 3” advisory, which warns Americans to avoid all non-essential travel. St. Eustatius, Saba, Curacao and Bonaire join Aruba and St. Maarten, which were already on the list of places where CDC says the risk of COVID-19 is high. Within the last 14 days, new cases of coronavirus increased in the territories.

Since the beginning of the pandemic Bonaire has reg­istered 97 confirmed infec­tions, Curacao 366, St. Eu­statius 13 and Saba five. The United Kingdom (UK) also removed Cu­racao from its safe travel corridor after seeing the recent COVID-19 surge on the island.

Canada has not done so to date, choosing instead to slap “avoid non-essential travel” advisories on the Dominican Republic (DR) and the British Virgin Is­lands (BVI) on Monday. This news comes as the DR added another 280 new in­fections Monday, to reach 111,666 confirmed cases, while its related death tally increased by three to 2,098. The BVI has so far report­ed 71 cases and one death. As of Monday, the num­ber of new cases across the Caribbean was over 600, according to a News Amer­icas tally, while 10 deaths were added.

The Daily Herald.