Coronavirus outbreak: If you have planned a holiday abroad, should you cancel?

The government advisory has also asked citizens to avoid non-essential travel to all COVID-19 affected countries. That would mean at least 83 countries as of now, on every continent barring Antarctica.

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All but 362 of these deaths have occurred in mainland China. Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan have seen 148, 124, 42, and 8 deaths respectively.

The answer is obviously “Yes” if your vacation destination happens to be China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, or Iran. The government has advised citizens to refrain from travelling to these countries. China is the epicentre of the outbreak — and the other four countries are among the worst affected.

As of Friday, more than 1,00,600 individuals have been sickened, and at least 3,404 have died, according to official counts. All but 362 of these deaths have occurred in mainland China. Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan have seen 148, 124, 42, and 8 deaths respectively.

The government advisory has also asked citizens to avoid non-essential travel to all COVID-19 affected countries. That would mean at least 83 countries as of now, on every continent barring Antarctica. In the United States, 231 cases have been detected and 12 deaths have occurred so far.

What about countries other than these 80-odd?

If your plans are for the summer holidays, that’s still more than two months away — and it is not clear how the situation will change from now to then. If you need to soon take a call on reservations and bookings, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) helpline will leave the decision to you; however, officials advise off the record that it might be a good idea to avoid non-essential travel anywhere outside the country.

“You will be in an aircraft with people from multiple countries, whose travel and contact histories you will not know. Since there is no screening before boarding a flight, there is no way to tell if a passenger is already unwell,” a senior NCDC official said.

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Dr Randeep Guleria, respiratory medicine specialist and Director, AIIMS, said: “As of now some countries are relatively safe, but as we have seen over the last two-three weeks, the disease has spread rapidly and the infection has dramatically increased in countries like Italy and South Korea. Unless one is willing to take the risk, I would say wait and watch for at least another 10 days.”

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Travelling inside the country is safe as of now, Dr Guleria said. “There have been no clusters of infection, nor any evidence of sustained human to human spread within the country,” he said.