Malta has been added to the USA’s “very high” risk list for travellers.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added Malta and 15 other countries to the list, which urges people to “avoid travel to these locations”. It urges anyone deciding to still travel to Malta to be fully vaccinated first – though it urges all travellers to be fully vaccinated before going abroad.

“Fully vaccinated travellers are less likely to get and spread COVID-19. However, international travel poses additional risks, and even fully vaccinated travellers might be at increased risk for getting and possibly spreading some COVID-19 variants,” the CDC said.

The news comes as a number of new variants, including the so-called “Florida Variant” begin to be discovered.

Malta’s Level 4 risk designation was given after the island surpassed the CDC’s red line of having over 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days.

As it stands, direct travel of non-citizens from a number of countries, including Ireland and Greece, continued to have been suspended since January, 2021 following an executive order. The US government said it planned to keep the travel ban in place as numbers surge with the spread of the Delta variant.

The following 16 destinations were moved to the CDC’s “Level 4: COVID-19 Very High” category this week: Andorra, Curaçao, Gibraltar, Greece, Guadeloupe, Iran, Ireland, Isle of Man, Kazakhstan, Lesotho, Libya, Malta, Martinique, Saint Barthelemy, Saint Martin and US Virgin Islands.