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Europe's Recent COVID-19 Surge has travelers wondering which countries are safer to go to, and which to avoid. Rather than basing a decision solely on the number of COVID-19 cases, we think hospitalization rate is a more relevant metric. This is for a few reasons:
- Many U.S. and European residents are vaccinated, such that a number of new COVID-19 cases are either asymptomatic or have minor symptoms
- Countries vary in how much people test for COVID-19. In the U.S., where COVID-19 tests, even antigen ones, are more expensive and there's much less testing, fewer tests results in fewer cases. A country with more cases per capita than the U.S. can reflect greater COVID-19 testing instead of greater prevalence of COVID-19.
- While hospitalization data certainly isn't perfect, it helps get around the variable amounts of testing as a proxy for the actual number of serious cases in a given location.
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Where to Go in Europe
While COVID-19 case numbers are higher in many European countries, at the time of writing, hospitalization rates have remained relatively low in the following countries:
- Sweden
- Portugal
- Spain
- Iceland
- Finland
- Denmark
- Italy
- Switzerland
- Netherlands
- France
- Ireland
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Where to Avoid in Europe
By contrast, countries with higher rates of COVID-19 hospitalization than the U.S. average include:
- Latvia
- Estonia
- Croatia
- Hungary
- Czech Republic
- United Kingdom
- Austria
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Compare Your City to Your European Destination
Of course, the U.S. average hospitalization rate of 128 patients per million isn't as helpful as the hospitalization rate in the place you live. So compare what the current hospitalization rate is where you live to where you plan to visit. For example, San Francisco's current COVID-19 hospitalization rate per million is 42, which is comparable to Denmark, a bit higher than Italy, and a bit lower than Switzerland. NYC is just above that, 45 per million, also comparable to Denmark and less than Switzerland and Italy. Miami-Dade County's hospitalization rate per million is 85, much higher than the Netherlands but lower than France.
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