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

• Philippines. An armed conflict occurred on 24 August between the Armed Forces of the Philippines and members of non-state armed group, displacing around 1.700 individuals or 406 families (ERCC).
• Afghanistan. A crisis of incredible proportions is unfolding in Afghanistan as conflict, combined with drought and COVID-19, is pushing Afghans into a humanitarian catastrophe, the UN food relief agency said on Wednesday (UN News). The United States and allies urged Afghans to leave Kabul airport on Thursday, citing the threat of an attack by Islamic State (IS) militants (Reuters). Details of the evacuation effort by country (Reuters). Thousands of people have flooded a border crossing dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, the Pakistan government has deployed its military forces to keep Afghan refugees out (Insider in Yahoo).
• Lebanon. The European Union is deeply concerned at the rapid deterioration of the crisis in Lebanon, its ambassador to Beirut said on Thursday, telling Lebanese leaders the time for action had run out and urging them to form a government (Reuters).
• Niger. Hundreds of Boko Haram militants attacked a military post in southeastern Niger overnight, killing 16 soldiers and wounding nine more, the defence ministry said on Wednesday (France24).
• Nigeria. At least 44 people have been killed by gunmen in Plateau and Benue states in north central Nigeria. This brings to 77 the number of people so far killed in ethnoreligious crisis in a week (Nation).

Natural Disasters

• Guatemala. Heavy rainfall and strong winds have affected 7 Departments over the past few days, causing floods, triggering landslides and leading to casualties and damage (ERCC).
• Colombia. Floods and landslides caused by heavy rain have been affecting Cundinamarca Department (central Colombia), resulting in damage (ERCC).
• Russia. Mudflows cause by heavy rainfall were reported across several Districts of Dagestan resulting in casualties, displacement, and damage (ERCC).

Health

• Afghanistan. Concerns grow for the ability of Afghanistan to continue its long campaign to eradicate polio. Afghanistan is one of only two countries in which the circulation of wild poliovirus has never been interrupted; Pakistan, with which it shares a long border, is the other (WIRED); and to control COVID-19. At a briefing today, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Eastern Mediterranean office said the group is worried that upheaval in Afghanistan will fuel a spike in COVID-19 cases and that the country has only enough medical supplies to last 1 week (CIDRAP).
• Democratic Republic of the Congo. A resurgence of Bubonic plague in Ituri province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is putting young lives at risk, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, warned on Tuesday. “The really worrying thing here is that we’ve got plague reported in areas which had not seen a case for more than 15 years, and many more cases in areas where they had very few or none previously,” said Izzy Scott Moncrieff, UNICEF Social Sciences Analytics Cell (CASS) Field Supervisor (UN News).

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:

• European Union. During a meeting scheduled between the EU ambassadors, the Slovenian representatives are set to propose the reintroduction of the entry ban on American travellers, due to a surge in the number of COVID-19 cases in the United States in recent weeks. (Schengenvisainfo)

Global cases and deaths. As of 26 August, Johns Hopkins University counts 214,128,601 COVID-19 cases and 4,467,928 deaths, and the WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 25 August 213,050,725 cases and 4,448,352 deaths.

As notable cases:

• Africa. A third wave of COVID-19 infections in Africa has stabilised with 248,000 cases reported in the last week, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, while vaccines administered over the same period tripled to 13 million compared to the previous week (Reuters).
• Australia‘s new daily cases of Covid-19 topped 1,000 on Thursday for the first time since the global pandemic began, as two major hospitals in Sydney set up emergency outdoor tents to help deal with a rise in patients (CNN).
• United States. More than 180,000 COVID-19 cases in US children were recorded in the week ending on Aug 19, reaching levels of the winter surge, according to the latest data from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). More than one in five (22.4%) reported cases that week were in children (CIDRAP).

Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 25 August, Our World in Data reports 33% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, and 25% is fully vaccinated. 5.08 billion doses have been administered globally, and 33.85 million are now administered each day. Only 1.4% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 24 August over 4.68 billion administered vaccine doses.

As notable cases:

• Japan suspended the use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna Inc’s (MRNA.O) COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday, more than a week after the domestic distributor received reports of contaminants in some vials (Reuters).
• Qatar is offering COVID-19 vaccines to evacuees from Afghanistan who are temporarily staying in the Gulf Arab state (Reuters).
• United States. Pfizer is seeking US regulatory approval for a third “booster” shot of its COVID-19 vaccine. It said yesterday that a third dose spurs a more than threefold increase in antibodies (Reuters). Moderna has completed the real-time review process needed for full approval of its COVID-19 vaccine in people aged 18 years and older, the company announced yesterday (Reuters). U.S. health regulators could approve a third COVID-19 shot for adults beginning at least six months after full vaccination, instead of the previously announced eight-month gap, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday (Reuters).

Studies

• The CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published new data from Los Angeles County collected from May to July, which show unvaccinated people were 5 times more likely to get COVID-19 than vaccinated peers and 29 times more likely to be hospitalized for their infections (CIDRAP).
• Protection against COVID-19 offered by two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines begins to fade within six months, underscoring the need for booster shots, according to researchers in Britain (Reuters).

Supply chains

• Vietnam. An outbreak of the Delta variant in Vietnam, where the COVID-19 vaccination rate is low, is causing factories to close and slowing global supplies of products such as shoes and apparel (WSJ).

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.