The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday warned against travel to Croatia, Armenia, Austria, Barbados, and Latvia because of COVID-19 concerns, Reuters reported.

The CDC raised its travel recommendations to “Level 4: Very High,” telling Americans they should avoid travel to the five countries.

On Monday, Croatia reported 219 new COVID cases and seven deaths. Nearly 8,700 people have died in the country since the pandemic began in February last year.

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which issues a map every Thursday depicting levels of risk of COVID infection across the EU, has for weeks shown Croatia in red, meaning the epidemiological situation in the country is unsafe. Last week, the capital of Zagreb has turned dark red on the map. 

The colour red means a 14-day incidence of 75-200, with the share of positive cases exceeding 4%, and an area where the 14-day incidence is 200-500, while dark red is used to identify areas where the 14-day incidence exceeds 500.