Stay at Home, Even In The Summer.

On July 1, the European Union officially re-opened their external borders to nonessential, non-EU passport holders. The borders have been closed since mid-March, when lockdown procedures were officially being enacted. Europe was not the only country to do so. 27 other countries have announced that they will be opening up their borders as well. However, not everyone will be allowed in. Only residents from 15 countries, all of which have the coronavirus under control, will be allowed entry. This means that residents from the US, which currently has the highest amount of cases, Russia, and Brazil, will have to continue staying at home. While the EU is expected to reanalyze the list of banned countries every two weeks, that doesn't mean European vacations are back on.

According to a CNN report, two EU ambassadors said that the US would need to have "a dramatic turnaround" in cases before their residents would be allowed entry. All the current countries who's residents are allowed into Europe have the same, or fewer, average new cases as the EU has had in the past 14 days. The EU has reported 16 per 100,000 cases in mid-June. In the US, the average in mid-June was 107 new cases per 100,000 people, so it's safe to say we might not be going to Europe this summer. While tourism is likely to suffer, as the US brings in a lot of vacationers annually, this is a serious matter, and the benefits are not worth the risk on both ends.