World Status Report

This report intends to give the UTD Community a snapshot of international risks, and other issues as reported by the linked media sources from the U.S. and other countries.

More health and security information for each country can be found in the travel advisories issued by the governments of the United States, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia, and the CDC, ECDC, and WHO sites. Not all advise in these sites will apply to US travelers.

Please note the publication date of this report, and go to the direct sources linked for the most up-to-date information.  The information in this report may change without prior notice.

Security

• Cameroon-Chad. Following inter-community clashes on the other side of the border (Logorne Birni, North of Cameroon), the Chadian authorities had registered 11,000 arrivals from Cameroon as of 10 August in different villages in the Chari Baguimi Province, Chad. These new arrivals are mostly women and children (ERCC).
• Afghanistan. The crisis in Afghanistan deepens by the hour, with reports that insurgent forces reached the country’s capital, Kabul, earlier on Sunday. There continue to be reports of serious human rights abuses and violations in the communities most affected by the fighting according to a note issued to the UN press corps. The insurgents now control more than two-thirds of the country, just weeks before the planned final withdrawal of US and international troops (UN News). Australia is working to get more than 130 of its citizens and people who have been granted humanitarian visas out of Afghanistan (Reuters). Britain will evacuate hundreds of British nationals and eligible Afghan nationals every day, and flights out of Afghanistan will continue for as long as it is safe, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman said on Monday (Reuters). Germany may need to evacuate as many as 10,000 people from Afghanistan, Chancellor Angela Merkel told party colleagues on Monday, according to party sources (Reuters). United Airlines (UAL.O) said late Sunday it is rerouting some flights to avoid Afghanistan airspace after insurgents took control of the presidential palace in Kabul as U.S.-led forces departed and Western nations scrambled on Monday to evacuate their citizens (Reuters). Thousands of Afghans desperate to leave the country thronged Kabul airport, prompting the U.S. military to suspend evacuations to clear the airfield (Reuters). The United Arab Emirates foreign ministry on Sunday said it was working on facilitating the evacuation of foreign diplomatic staff from Afghanistan through airports in the Gulf Arab state (Reuters). Some U.N. and U.S. officials worry Afghanistan’s slide into chaos is creating conditions for even higher illicit opiate production, a potential boon to the Taliban (Reuters).
• Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rival armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are carrying out horrific sexual attacks against women and girls, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned on Friday and called on the authorities to urgently scale up security in northern Tanganyika Province (UN News).
• Nicaraguan police have arrested a top editor of a newspaper critical of President Daniel Ortega, who has overseen a months-long crackdown on opposition leaders and potential challengers ahead of an election in November (Al Jazeera).

Natural Disasters

• Haiti. The number of casualties has risen following the 7.2 M earthquake in Nippes Department (southern Haiti) on 14 August at 12.29 UTC. At least 800 people have died, 2,800 others have been injured and 6,300 families affected. In addition, more than 12,200 houses have been destroyed or damaged. Figures are likely to increase significantly in the coming hours and days (ERCC). Haiti’s hospitals were swamped on Sunday by thousands of injured residents after a devastating earthquake the day before killed at least 1,297 people as authorities raced to bring doctors to the worst-hit areas before a major storm hits (Reuters).
• Niger. Since mid-June, the rainy season has been affecting parts of Niger resulting in casualties and damage (ERCC).
• United States. A state of emergency has been declared for 23 Counties across Florida due to the passage of Tropical Storm FRED (ERCC).
• Turkey. Floods, flash floods and landslides caused by heavy rainfall continue to affect northern Turkey, particularly the western Black Sea Region (ERCC).
• Greece. Strong winds fanned two wildfires outside Athens on Monday, threatening homes and forcing the evacuation of villages (Reuters).
• Spain. At least 800 people were evacuated in Spain as forest fires blazed Sunday in two regions, with extremely dry conditions worsening the risk of more wildfires during the hottest weekend of the year so (ABC)

Health

• Uganda. According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification for Karamoja, in North Eastern Uganda, 361,000 people are estimated to be experiencing high levels of acute food insecurity at crisis level or worse (ERCC).
• West Nile Virus. Between 6 and 12 August 2021, European Union (EU) and European Economic Area (EEA) countries reported 12 human cases of West Nile virus (WNV) infection and no deaths related to WNV infections. Cases were reported by Greece (5), Italy (4), Austria (2) and Romania (1). EU-neighbouring countries reported two fatal human cases of WNV infection in Serbia (ECDC).
• Ivory Coast. A case of Ebola virus was confirmed in the country for the first time in twenty-five years. Health officials said they are working to trace the contacts of the patient, who entered the country by road from Guinea (WaPo). “It is of immense concern that this outbreak has been declared in Abidjan, a metropolis of more than 4 million people,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa. WHO is helping to coordinate cross-border Ebola response activities and 5000 Ebola vaccines doses which the organization helped secure to fight the outbreak in Guinea are now being transferred to Cote d’Ivoire (WHO).

COVID-19

International preventative measures against COVID-19, including entry restrictions and in-country mobility remain fluid, and can be imposed without prior notice.  The UNWTO and IATA Destination Tracker offers relevant information on a destination status. The Timeline of EU Member States Reopening Their Borders offers a list of opened EU countries for travelers, and dates of warned opening.

As notable cases:

• Japan will extend its COVID-19 emergency in regions including Tokyo to the middle of September as well as adding several other regions, the Sankei Shimbun daily reported on Monday (Japan Times).
• France’s pass sanitaire health permit system will be extended to more than 120 major department stores and shopping centres on Monday in areas where levels of Covid infection are causing concern, including Paris and the Mediterranean coast. The measure restricts entry to customers who can prove they have been vaccinated, have had a negative Covid test or have recovered from coronavirus (Guardian).
• South Africa‘s health minister said on Friday he would not recommend a relaxation of COVID-19 lockdown measures despite a downward trend in infections (Reuters).
• Vietnam. Thousands of jobless workers in Vietnam’s biggest city are trying to flee to their hometowns, many on motorcycles piled high with belongings, following an extension of restrictions in the epicentre of the country’s worst coronavirus outbreak yet (Reuters).
• Hong Kong said it would upgrade 15 overseas places including the United States, Spain and France to “high risk” from “medium risk” by Aug. 20, meaning international arrivals from those countries will face lengthened quarantine due to a resurgence of the coronavirus (Reuters).
• India. Authorities in India’s financial capital Mumbai have almost fully resumed suburban rail services for the first time in more than a year, as part of a wider easing of COVID-19 restrictions, as the pace of infections declined (Reuters).
• Botswana, which has one of the world’s highest COVID-19 infection rates per capita, has announced new COVID-19 restrictions, including extension of a nighttime curfew and postponement of the reopening of schools (VOA).
• North Macedonia has reimposed restrictions on access to cafes, restaurants and public events in a bid to subdue a fresh spike in COVID-19 infections and nudge citizens to get vaccinated, prompting (Reuters on MSN)

Global cases and deaths. As of 16 August, Johns Hopkins University counts 207,366,191 COVID-19 cases and 4,365,541 deaths, and the WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 16 August 206,958,371 cases and 4,357,179 deaths.

As notable cases:

• Israel. The number of serious COVID-19 cases in Israel fell slightly overnight amid hopes that the effect of the third vaccine booster given to older Israelis was beginning to be seen. Meanwhile, active cases in the country rose to over 50,000 after standing at around 200 just two months ago. The Health Ministry said the rate of serious cases was far higher among unvaccinated Israelis aged 60-plus (Times of Israel).
• Australia‘s biggest city of Sydney recorded its deadliest day of the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday as troops and police set up roadblocks to limit the movement of people, while Melbourne faced a nightly curfew and a further two weeks of lockdown (Reuters).
• United States. A Carnival Cruise Line ship that left from Galveston, Tex., has 27 coronavirus-positive people on board, according to the Belize Tourism Board. The outbreak is among the highest number of publicly reported cases on a ship sailing from the United States since cruises restarted this summer. According to the statement from Belize tourism officials, 26 of the infected people are crew members and one is a guest. All are vaccinated, and most have either mild or no symptoms. The ship is continuing to sail and arrived in Cozumel on Thursday (WaPo).
• Iran is under assault from the most cataclysmic wave yet of the coronavirus, according to interviews with physicians and health workers, social media postings from angry citizens, and even some unusually frank reporting in state media. Frontline doctors in Tehran, Isfahan, Ahvaz and Mashhad told The New York Times that the real death toll was closer to 1,000 a day. Doctors also say that the true rate of infections is likely much higher than the official rate of about 40,000 a day because of insufficient testing and lack of access to care (NYT).

Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 15 August, Our World in Data reports 31.4% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 23.6% is fully vaccinated. 4.72 billion doses have been administered globally, and 35,64 million are now administered each day. Only 1.3% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 12 August over 4.42 billion administered vaccine doses.

As notable cases:

• United Kingdom. All 16- and 17-year-olds in England are to be offered a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine by Monday 23 August, the Department of Health has announced. The health secretary, Sajid Javid, said the date would give teenagers two weeks to build up immunity before school starts again in September (Guardian).
• Morocco received on Friday a shipment of 600,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine as it expands its inoculation campaign to younger people amid a recent surge in new cases, said Said Afif, a member of the health ministry’s scientific committee (Reuters).
• Canada on Friday said it will soon require all federal public servants and many other workers to be vaccinated against COVID-19 (Reuters).
• Thailand, a regional manufacturer of AstraZeneca’s (AZN.L) coronavirus shots, is seeking to borrow 150,000 doses of the same vaccine from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, an official said on Monday, amid a Thai supply shortage (Reuters).
• Turkey is allowing people who were inoculated with Sinovac’s (SVA.O)coronavirus vaccine to take an additional Pfizer (PFE.N) dose as it looks to ease travel to countries that have not approved the Chinese shot, the health ministry said on Monday (Reuters).
• Germany updated its guidance on Monday to recommend that all children and adolescents aged 12-17 be given a COVID-19 vaccine, citing further safety data and increased risks posed by the more infectious Delta variant (Reuters).
• United States. The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is developing a plan to start offering coronavirus booster shots to some Americans as early as this fall, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the effort (Reuters).

Please note the publication date of this report and go to the direct sources linked for the most up-to-date information.  The information in this report may change without prior notice.