Image from Reuters' Belize.
In Central America, Costa Rica and Belize are generally safe countries where you may have access to quality health care should you need it. Both countries have worked hard to vaccinate their populations. Throughout the pandemic rates have gone up and down. They've held off Omicron longer than the US: unfortunately in January 2022, that means both countries are seeing rates going up. In other ways, the tropics are a great place to skip the winter surge and boredom: I'm in Costa Rica right now, and don't have to change hardly any plans to avoid sharing indoor air spaces with strangers.
As we have were setting up this site in 2021, we changed recommendations back and forth between Belize and Costa Rica as their spikes come and go. Right now, I'd call it about even: Belize has done a much better job of getting hotels to take the pandemic seriously. In particular, if you catch Covid, I don't find that Costa Rican hotels have generally thought about keeping a room free to help you isolate short of going to the hospital, and in crowded areas you might be coughing and moving hotels. But Belize unfortunately has a significantly lower vaccination rate.
Experiences traveling in Costa Rica: I'm finding that tourists are much, much less careful of their neighbors and hosts than Costa Rican locals are. Signs are ignored. Travelers are done, are pretending to be done, with Covid. In the beach towns, everyone spends much time outside. Mask up carefully in shared vehicles, and (easily) avoid indoor shared spaces. At the moment I feel safer than at home, where any trip to a shopping store involves someone wearing a poorly fitted mask in an indoor space.
The map at the bottom of Reuters' Latin America and the Caribbean is a great starting place.
You might watch these maps to see when Omicron peaks, and plan a trip soon after? 3% of their peak, and about 10% of the population vaccinated.
If you were thinking about Costa Rica (CDC report), you might consider Belize (CDC report) instead.
Your visit to Belize is required to start at a "Gold Standard Hotel." We've pulled in a list of approved hotels and integrated them with regular ratings: Find a Hotel in Belize.
There is a desperate need to get vaccines to the lower income nations in Central America: the delta variant is on the way, and nations that are not vaccinated before it spreads will be in real trouble. For all that last year was terrible in the US, we are deeply luck to have faced the older variants, not the new ones that spread so fast that they will almost certainly collapse the healthcare system if nothing is done.
Total deaths so far per million as of June 9:
Costa Rica: 483 (76,000 out of 5.1 million population — Seems to have gotten bad but back under control.)
Belize: 804 (135 active cases out of .4 million population — Best choice right now in Central America.)
Panama: 1464 (8000 active cases 4.3million population)
Nicaragua: 28 (reported)
Much of Central America is really struggling right now — Amnesty International talks about the intersection of human rights, refugees and Covid019.