Hey, Kansas, it’s safe again to travel to Andorra, health officials say. Um, where?
For weeks, a country named Andorra has lingered on the Kansas COVID-19 travel advisory.
Wait.
That country in “The Princess Diaries”? Does Julie Andrews know about this?
Since the early days of the pandemic, state health officials, like some others across the country, have issued travel warnings about places around the globe with troublesome coronavirus spread. If you go there, health officials warn, then you need to quarantine when you get home.
Missouri did not issue travel advisories but points residents to travel advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
California, Florida, New York, Arizona, New Jersey, South Dakota, China, Iran, Bahrain and a host of other trouble spots have been on the Kansas Department of Health and Environment list at one time or another. People who traveled on a cruise ship were asked to quarantine. Remember March and April?
Andorra made the list, alongside North Dakota, on Oct. 21. The only other countries on the Kansas list were Belgium and Czechia.
And while it might sound like the fictional kingdom in a Disney movie, Andorra’s struggles with COVID-19 are very real.
During the pandemic, the CDC and the U.S. State Department have warned U.S. citizens not to travel to tiny Andorra.
More than 6,300 cases of COVID-19, and 76 deaths, have been reported in this nation of fewer than 80,000 souls. The principality is sandwiched between France and Spain in the picturesque Pyrenees mountains.
In April, when coronavirus lockdown restrictions were eased, Andorra did it in orderly fashion: People in even-numbered houses got to leave their homes on even dates, people with odd-numbered addresses went out on opposite days.
About 10 million people visit each year. Tourism fuels its economy. Winter sports are big there, and it is also a frequent stop on the Tour de France. It has a national soccer, er, football team. Over the summer one of its legendary players, Ildefons Lima, raised concerns about lack of coronavirus testing for players, and was excluded from playing.
Some “Princess Diaries” fans believe Andorra inspired the fictional Genovia featured in the 2001 movie starring Anne Hathaway as a California teen groomed for the throne of a small European kingdom. Andrews plays the queen.
The U.S. State Department issued a travel advisory on Aug. 6 advising residents to “reconsider travel to Andorra due to COVID-19,” placing it one step below the dreaded “do not travel” advisory level.
Andorra still has a “very high” COVID-19 travel rating from the CDC, which advises: “Travelers should avoid all travel to Andorra. Travel may increase your chance of getting and spreading COVID-19.”
Kansas health officials have a formula for determining what travel destinations to warn about that includes the number of COVID-19 cases and reports of widespread community transmission.
Numbers are adjusted to determine case rate per 100,000 population so they can be compared to Kansas rates. States and countries that are about triple the Kansas rate are added to the travel quarantine list.
“We update the list every two weeks,” said health department spokeswoman Kristi Zears in Topeka. “Andorra was first added on October 21 as it had approximately 4.9 times the Kansas rate.
“It was removed on November 17 because it no longer met the 3 times higher metric.”
As of Monday, Kansas has reported 142,059 COVID-19 cases including 1,456 deaths. The monthly positive test rate was 19%.
North Dakota, South Dakota, Belgium and Czechia were also removed from the list last week. But Dr. Lee Norman, the top health official in Kansas, was cautious. Because Andorra’s leaving the list says more about Kansas than a tiny country where a Catholic bishop and the president of France are co-princes.
“The removal of states from our list isn’t cause for celebration,” Norman said in a statement. “We base our list on new case rates by population size and unfortunately, Kansas’ numbers are increasing significantly.
“Practice social distancing, wear a mask, stay home if you’re sick, avoid large gatherings. Each one of us is responsible for our actions.”
This story was originally published November 25, 2020 at 10:27 AM.
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