File photo: People enjoy the boardwalk during the Memorial Day holiday weekend amid the coronavirus pandemic on May 23, 2020 in Ocean City, Maryland.
People in Algeria, Rwanda, Uruguay, China and Canada are now free to travel to parts of Europe on vacation. Travelers from the United States are not.
At first glance, it seems like the European Union has chosen a motley crew of 15 countries whose residents are now officially allowed nonessential travel into its member nations, something that has been restricted since the middle of March.
In fact, the Europeans say this exclusive club was devised using a strict set of epidemiological criteria.
That's why the U.S. — which has the most coronavirus cases and deaths in the world — was nowhere near making the cut, according to three E.U. diplomats involved in the negotiations, speaking anonymously because they were not authorized to talk publicly about them.
"What do you think?" one of them deadpanned when asked if Washington had been close to meeting the threshold.
"The U.S. was never going to make it," another said. "Just look at their coronavirus situation."
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