• Slide 4 of 44: Visitors watch a polar bear in its enclosure at the Copenhagen Zoo on May 25, 2020 which partially reopened following its closure due to the novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo by Thibault Savary / AFP) (Photo by THIBAULT SAVARY/AFP via Getty Images)

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis announced over the weekend that the country will block American tourists from entry as U.S. coronavirus numbers continue to surge.

He also announced that flights to the U.S. would be stopped.

The state of the pandemic in the Bahamas, Minnis said, has grown worse “at an exponential rate” since the reopening of international borders, adding that its total cases stand at 153, including 49 new cases since the full reopening of borders July 1.

‘International commercial flights and commercial vessels carrying passengers will not be permitted to enter our borders, except for commercial flights from Canada, the United Kingdom, and the European Union,” Minnis said in his Sunday address. “This will come into effect as of Wednesday the 22nd of July 2020 at midnight. Bahamasair will cease outgoing flights to the United States of America, effective immediately.”

The prime minister warned that without aggressive border controls, the Bahamas’ progress on the virus could be undone “because of how citizens and residents within countries are following or ignoring health guidelines.”

  • Slide 1 of 44: Spectators maintain social distancing rules as they attend an opera at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, on May 26, 2020, after a two-month closure aimed at stemming the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus. - (Photo by DENIS LOVROVIC / AFP) (Photo by DENIS LOVROVIC/AFP via Getty Images)
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(Pictured) Spectators maintain social distancing rules as they attend an opera at the Croatian National Theatre, which opened after two months, in Zagreb, Croatia, on May 26, 2020.

Florida, which is about 50 miles northwest of the islands, represents one of the Bahamas’ largets tourist markets and has become a major U.S. epicenter of the virus in recent weeks, reporting 12,478 new cases on Sunday.

“[A]s a country we have to do what is right and necessary. If we do not take these measures now, we will pay a higher and deadlier price later,” Minnis said in his address. “At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic we acted early to prevent widespread sickness and death. We must do so once again.”

The announcement comes after the European Union banned U.S. travelers due to the country’s surging coronavirus cases earlier this summer.