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

• Haiti. During the night of 13 December 2021, a tanker truck carrying petroleum products had a traffic accident in the Cap-Haitien city. Some people took the opportunity to collect fuel from the truck when the explosion occurred causing many victims and significant material damage (ERCC).
• Colombia. On 14 December, two police officers and a suspected attacker have been killed in bomb blasts at Cúcuta airport (Norte Santander) (ERCC).
• Myanmar. The military junta were not swayed massive protests throughout the country and began violently suppressing dissent. Now, violence seems to be escalating, prompting the UN’s top human rights official to warn that Myanmar may be sliding into a civil war (UN Dispatch).
• Burkina Faso-Niger. Burkina Faso’s armed forces killed about 100 militants in a joint operation with Niger between Nov. 25 and Dec. 9 in the two countries’ border zone, the Burkinabe army said.
• German police said on Wednesday they had uncovered a plot by anti-vaccination activists in Saxony to murder the eastern German state’s premier, adding to concerns about increasingly violent protests over plans for mandatory vaccinations (Reuters).

Natural Disasters

• Indonesia. After the strong earthquake of 7.3M at a depth of 18 km occurred offshore in the eastern Flores Sea on 14 December at 3.20 UTC, the number of casualties has increased and more damage was reported across the Selayar Islands Regency and the Sikka Regency (ERCC).
• Philippines. After passing north of Palau, tropical cyclone RAI (also known as “Odette”) is moving westwards over the western Pacific Ocean. RAI is forecast to intensify and could make landfall in the morning of 16 December in an area between North-Eastern Mindanao or Eastern Visayas (ERCC).
• Mexico. Heavy rain, cold temperatures and strong winds have been reported across Tijuana City (north-eastern Baja California State, north-eastern Mexico), resulting in casualties (ERCC).
• Brazil. Heavy rain continues to affect eastern Brazil (particularly Bahia and Minas Gerais States) since mid-November, causing floods that have resulted in more casualties and widespread damage (ERCC).
• Somalia. Drought conditions in Somalia are worsening despite rains in parts of the country, a top United Nations humanitarian official said. People are being displaced, with some traveling 30 or 40 kilometers from rural areas in search of water in urban centers (VOA).

Health

• World. The COVID-19 pandemic is set to dismantle nearly 2 decades of global progress toward Universal Health Coverage and increase the number of people pushed into extreme poverty due to out-of-pocket healthcare costs, already at more than half a billion people prior to the pandemic, according to 2 new reports from the WHO and the World Bank (Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security).
• Congo (DRC). The interim governor of Maniema, Afani Idrissa Mangala, declared this past Thursday, December 09, 2021, a monkeypox outbreak  in the province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A total of 24 deaths linked to this epidemic have been recorded in the Tundu health zone in Kibombo territory in the southern part of Maniema (Outbreak News Today)

Migration

• Chad. A spate of fighting fuelled by water disputes in the Far North region in Cameroon has driven 48,000 people to seek refuge in Chad so far this month, according to Chadian authorities (Reuters).
• Mexico. A new wave of migrants is arriving at the Mexican border due south of the United States after U.S. judges ordered the resumption of a policy that requires migrants to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their asylum cases (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. The University Vaccine Requirement Checker notes universities that require a COVID-19 Vaccine.

As notable cases:

• Canada is expected to toughen restrictions on international travel with new measures to be announced on Wednesday as it looks to limit the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, CBC News reported (Reuters).
• South Korea warned on Wednesday it may reinstate stricter social distancing curbs as it posted a new record daily coronavirus tally due to a persistent spike in breakthrough infections among those vaccinated and serious cases (Reuters).
• Australia on Wednesday reopened borders to vaccinated skilled migrants and foreign students after a nearly two-year ban on their entry, in a bid to boost an economy hit by stop-start COVID-19 lockdowns (Reuters).

Global cases and deaths. As of 15 December, Johns Hopkins University counts 271,646,797 COVID-19 cases and 5,325,145 deaths. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 14 December 270,031,622 confirmed cases, including 5,310,502 deaths.

As notable cases:

• Africa. Africa is experiencing its fastest surge in COVID-19 cases this year, with the number up 83% in the past week, although deaths remain low, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday (Reuters).
• United States. Coronavirus cases, driven almost entirely by the delta variant, continue to surge across the United States, defying previous patterns, causing military medical backup to be called into action and creating large caseloads in some highly vaccinated states (WaPo).

Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 14 December, Our World in Data reports 56.4% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 8.55 billion doses have been administered globally, and 37.09 million are now administered each day. Only 7.3% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 13 December over 8.2 billion administered vaccine doses.

As notable cases:

• Pfizer-BioNTech‘s COVID-19 vaccine has been less effective in South Africa at keeping people infected with the virus out of hospital since the Omicron variant emerged last month, a real-world study published on Tuesday showed (Reuters). Israeli researchers said on Saturday they found that a three-shot course of the Pfizer/BioNTech (PFE.N), (22UAy.DE) COVID-19 vaccine provided significant protection against the new Omicron variant (Reuters).
• Hong Kong. Researchers in Hong Kong have urged people to get a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible, after a study showed insufficient antibodies were generated by the Sinovac (SVA.O) and BioNTech (22UAy.DE) products to fend off Omicron (Reuters).
• India is struggling to export its surplus of COVID-19 vaccines as logistical hurdles delay their use in many countries despite low levels of inoculation, vaccine producer the Serum Institute of India (SII) and a government official said on Tuesday (Reuters).
• Africa. Just twenty of Africa’s fifty-four countries have fully vaccinated at least 10 percent of their populations. The African continent might not reach the target of vaccinating 70% of its 1.3 billion population against COVID-19 until the second half of 2024 (AP).

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.