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 and official 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

• Gaza. 2.45 million Palestinians need humanitarian assistance. Due to the violence in May this year, hundreds of Palestinians have died, including children benefitting from an EU-funded programme. Over 100,000 have fled their homes across Gaza (ERCC).
• Somalia. A suicide car bomb killed at least eight people in the Somali capital on Saturday at a street junction near the president’s palace, police said, and al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab said it was behind the attack which targeted a convoy going into the palace (Reuters).
• Taiwan needs to have long-range, accurate weapons in order to properly deter a China that is rapidly developing its systems to attack the island, Defence Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said on Monday (Reuters).
• Ethiopia. Yet others claimed Tigray forces went door-to-door killing men and teenage boys. The allegations from the town of Kobo are the latest against Tigray forces as they push through the neighboring Amhara region (ABC News).
• Norway. A day after Norway lifted coronavirus lockdown restrictions, the police reported several violent clashes and mass brawls as people crowded streets, bars, nightclubs and restaurants in many cities in celebration. The restrictions had been in place for 561 days (Yahoo).

Natural Disasters

• China. On 26 September, a landslide caused by recent heavy rain occurred in Labahe Town (Tianquan County, Sichuan Province, south China), resulting in casualties (ERCC).
• India. 22,468 people were evacuated in anticipation of Cyclone Gulab landfall on 26 September (ERCC). A cyclone flooded parts of India’s eastern coast with heavy rains and uprooted thousands of trees and power poles, knocking out electricity, before weakening to a deep depression Monday (ABC News)
• Indonesia. Heavy rain has been affecting Sumatra Island over the past few days, triggering landslides, causing floods and leading to casualties and damage (ERCC).
• Thailand, Vietnam. Widespread floods, flash floods and landslides have been recorded in northern and central Vietnam and northern Thailand following the influence of the tropical cyclone DIANMU since 23 September (ERCC).
• Mexico. Heavy rain was reported on 24-25 September across Jalisco State (western coast of central Mexico) resulting in casualties (ERCC).
• Canary Islands. The volcano on Spain’s La Palma has begun spewing lava and smoke again, researchers said on Monday after activity had earlier slowed to a near halt, while some coastal villages locked down in anticipation of the lava reaching the sea (Reuters).
• Turkey issues tsunami warning as magnitude 6.5 earthquake rocks holiday hotspot Crete (Express)
• World. No region is immune to climate disasters the UN chief told the Security Council on Thursday, warning that “our window of opportunity” to prevent the worst climate impacts is “rapidly closing” (UN News).
• Americas. Dying crops, spiking energy bills, showers once a week. In South America, the climate future has arrived (WaPo).

Health

• Greece, Italy, Serbia. Between 17 and 23 September 2021, eleven human cases of West Nile virus (WNV) infection and one death related to WNV infections were reported. Cases: Greece (5), Italy (4), Serbia (2).  Deaths: Greece (1) (ECDC)
• Guinea. On 16 September 2021, Guinea declared the end of the Marburg virus disease (MVD) outbreak as no cases have been recorded for a period of 42 days after the last possible exposure to the case (ECDC).
• Nigeria, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Bangladesh. Since the last update on 27 August 2021, new cholera cases have been reported worldwide. Countries reporting the majority of new cases since the previous update are Nigeria, Niger, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Bangladesh (ECDC).
• China. The health authority in southern China’s Guangdong province said on Wednesday that a single case of a human being infected with the H5N6 strain of bird flu has been reported in the city of Dongguan (Reuters).

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:

• Australia announced plans on Monday to gradually reopen locked-down Sydney, unveiling a two-tiered system that will give citizens inoculated for COVID-19 more freedoms than their unvaccinated neighbours for several weeks (Reuters).
• Thailand will waive its mandatory quarantine requirement in Bangkok and nine regions from Nov. 1 to vaccinated arrivals, authorities said on Monday (Reuters).
• New Zealand is to begin allowing small numbers of vaccinated travellers to isolate at home instead of in state-run quarantine facilities as part of a phased approach to re-opening its borders (Reuters).
• Japan, will lift the Covid state of emergency in all regions at the end of September, broadcaster NHK has reported today (Guardian).
• Macau is stepping up travel restrictions as the city tries to prevent a Covid-19 outbreak that could threaten its gaming industry ahead of a weeklong holiday in China (Bloomberg).

Global cases and deaths. As of 27 September, Johns Hopkins University counts 231,962,768 COVID-19 cases and 4,750,658 deaths, and the WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 27 September 231,551,680 cases and 4,743,708 deaths.

As notable cases:

• Vietnam. Authorities in Vietnam’s biggest city are urging the government to recognise positive rapid tests for COVID-19 to present a clearer picture of its outbreak, state media reported on Monday, a move that could increase the city’s case total by 40% (Reuters).
• Singapore reported 1,939 new COVID-19 cases on Sunday, the highest since the beginning of the pandemic (Reuters).
• India reported 29,616 new COVID-19 cases for the last 24 hours, according to government data on Saturday (Reuters).
• China. The Covid-19 outbreak in southeastern Chinese province of Fujian has tapered with only two cases reported in Xiamen on Sunday but the outbreak in northern Heilongjiang province is still on the rise (SCMP)

Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 26 September, Our World in Data reports 44.5% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 6.13 billion doses have been administered globally, and 24.98 million are now administered each day. Only 2.2% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 23 September over 5.87 billion administered vaccine doses.

As notable cases:

• Cuba said on Saturday it had exported its three-shot Abdala coronavirus vaccine for the first time, sending an initial shipment to Vietnam as part of a contract to supply five million doses to the Southeast Asian country (Reuters).
• El Salvador will begin administering a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine to various groups including the elderly, healthworkers and people with underlying health conditions (Reuters).
• South Korea said on Monday it would begin inoculations next month for children aged 12 to 17 and offer COVID-19 vaccine booster shots to those 75 years and above as the country starts to transition to normalcy by the end of October (Reuters).
• Europe. The European Commission has proposed extending the period of its scheme for monitoring and potentially limiting exports of COVID-19 vaccines from the bloc, a European Commission spokesperson told Reuters on Monday (Reuters).
• Israel. The first data evaluating the early impact of the third dose programme were published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). It showed that two weeks after more than 1.1 million over-60s had received their third dose, they were 11.3 times less likely to become infected with the exceptionally contagious Delta variant that currently predominates in Israel and across the world (Guardian).
• The UK has fully vaccinated more than two-thirds of its population against Covid – one of a small number of countries to reach the milestone (Guardian).
• World. More countries are exploring the possibility of switching to different coronavirus jabs for second doses and booster shots after supply delays and safety concerns hindered their vaccination campaigns (Guardian).
• Iran, a country that has faced several deadly waves of Covid, is still struggling to overcome vaccine hesitancy the Associated Press reports (Guardian).

Impact

• United Kingdom. With millions of people across the UK currently on NHS waiting lists, there’s growing concern many are feeling forced to use private healthcare (BBC).
• United States. Hospitals and nursing homes in New York are bracing for the possibility that a statewide COVID-19 vaccine mandate for health care workers could lead to staff shortages when it takes effect Monday (NPR)

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.