State Dept says Germany is level 4 "Do not travel", we arrive in Munich next Tuesday

If the State Department applied its guidelines equally to the U.S. as it does to other countries, we would be
advised to evacuate the U.S.
I was in Germany a few months ago and was very impressed how Covid safety protocols were adhered to throughout the country.
Don’t cancel your trip!

I just read that the State Department is changing how they eval Level 4 in relation to Covid and are taking that out of the mix.

What would your state be rated if the State Dept did that? Idaho would be a 5 out if 4, lol.

Let me see if I can find a link. Where I saw it was on the State Department FB page, lol

Editing to add: Here is the web page regarding the changes.

https://www.state.gov/covid-19-travel-advisory-updates/

I’m glad they’ve reevaluated as Ukraine and Russia were an understandable Level 4 but so is Western Europe.

I was in Berlin two weeks ago. Don't cancel your trip. I hope you have a great time!

There is a huge difference between level 4 for civil unrest and level 4 for Covid. I would not let level 4 for Covid stop me unless it was accompanied by major shut-downs in the country. Even my travel insurance differentiates between these two reasons with travel to level 4 due to Covid continuing to be covered while travel to level 4 due to civil unrest is not.

Don't cancel, but in my opinion have a plan B ready if you get Omikron. Things are getting better, but many folks have had Covid even with three vaccinations, some twice now. Some seem immune. Pickup a few self-tests when you arrive at a store here. If you are feeling ill, do the test. Many feel better after a few days and are over it. https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/478220a4c454480e823b17327b2bf1d4

I would still go but have back up and plan of where you would stay etc, if tested positive.

We are in Munich now. We have been here for 2+ weeks… Dresden, Berlin, Nuremberg and headed to Baden Baden. We came for opera and symphony concerts, all fully subscribed. We are using public transport exclusively, all fully subscribed.
And we feel completely safe and comfortable. Mask compliance here is nearly 100%, with no toddler behavior of wearing it below your nose. We have self- tests just for our own information, and so far, so good.
We have a room at the Marriott at the Frankfurt airport the day before our flight. We will test there. We switched our reservation to the Marriott because of a review that specifically mentioned having to quarantine there and how helpful the staff was. We splurged on a two- room suite ( because of an extra bathroom) that looked comfortable for a 10 day stint. They have ice machines(!), and a laundry. We have Trawick insurance that ( claims) will reimburse us up to $7,000.
This is not a perfect plan, but will work for us. I would say that so far, masks have saved the day. And of course our three jabs of Pfizer.
We actually feel safer here than at home, and we live on the West Coast which is already a pretty prudent population.

Come on over! Mask up as you feel the need. From day 1 of the pandemic I have felt safer in Germany than in the US. Could you get covid here? Sure, just as you could at home. May as well come as not!

Thank you all so much! You have all been very encouraging, and have some good advice. It is great to hear more about your experiences in Germany. We have a stock of N95 and KN95 masks and a few covid tests in our luggage. I also saw that the CDC is changing how they rate countries.

We will spend 5 nights in Munich, then on to Salzburg, Fussen, Rothenburg, Baden Baden, Colmar, Trier, Beilstein, Bacharach, Amsterdam, and finally to see my husband's cousin and his grandparents home in Dusseldorf!

I don't know how meaningful this data is, but it shows 7-day average confirmed cases, Germany is 1,529 confirmed cases per million people (as of yesterday), United States is 118.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus#explore-the-global-situation

We really cannot compare case rates between Germany and the USA. Multiple states including Utah have discouraged public testing due to insufficient resources. In Utah the Governor said that if we get covid symptoms, just assume we have it and self-quarantine.

A sounder measure is to compare hospitalization rates. The US Covid hospitalization rate is 4.5 per 100,000 people. Bavaria is a little over 6.2 per 100,000. It is higher but not like the case rate difference.

Covid is still around and serious. We are going but will mask and socially distant to a reasonable extent.

https://interaktiv.morgenpost.de/corona-virus-karte-infektionen-deutschland-weltweit/

I don't know how meaningful this data is, but it shows 7-day average confirmed cases,
Germany is 1,529 confirmed cases per million people (as of yesterday), United States is 118

"I don't know how meaningful this data is". Not very. I think you must be misreading some of the numbers (like whether they are total or per million, or what).

According to the Johns Hopkins Dashboard, whom I trust, the US had 893.293 new cases in the last 28 days. Assuming it was evenly distributed over time (which it wasn't) the average for 7 days is 223,323. That number, divided by 329.5 million people, is 678 new cases per million over the past 7 days. I didn't calculate the number for Germany, but it probably is experiencing a surge right now.

The US had 80,625,120 cases for 244,689 cases/million since the beginning of the pandemic, while Germany had 23,376, 879 for 280,972/million. Germany was 15'% higher, but we were essentially the same for cases over 2 years.

But, overall, Germany's COVID death rate of 132,929 for 83.2 million people is about 1590 deaths/million for the entire pandemic vs our 988,609 deaths for 329.5 million or 3000 deaths/million for the pandemic.