EU opens borders to ‘safe’ countries

The European Union agreed Tuesday to reopen its borders to 15 countries excluding the virusstricken US, as the pandemic accelerated globally with more than 505,000 deaths worldwide. Europe’s piecemeal reopening comes as countries struggle to revive economic activity while fending off new spikes of COVID-19, with hotspots still surging in Latin America and in the US.

After days of negotiations, EU members finalized the list of countries whose health situation was deemed safe enough to allow residents to enter the bloc starting on July 1 — but the US was notably excluded, along with Russia and Turkey.