World Status Report
June 25, 2021
This report intends to give the UTD Community a snapshot of international risks, and other issues as reported by the linked official sources from the U.S. and other countries.
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
Defense forces, soldiers from nearby countries and other security personnel have been fighting an “asymmetric war” against armed groups in Central African Republic, sparking an “unprecedented humanitarian crisis”, the top UN official in the country told the Security Council on Wednesday (UN News). Officials count ballots after Ethiopia‘s election, while new fighting is reported in Tigray (Reuters). Sudan‘s premier warned Tuesday of “deeply worrying” fractures within the country’s security forces and called for reconciliation between civilian and military political factions (AfricaNews). The European Commission will take action against Hungary over planned new restrictions on LGBT rights, the head of the bloc’s executive announced on Wednesday, saying they violated fundamental EU values (USNews).
Natural Disasters
Heavy rain and strong winds continue to affect most of Guatemala. On 22 June, a landslide occurred in Tirap District, in north-eastern India, resulting in casualties. On 22 June, heavy rain was reported across most of Poland, resulting in local flooding. On 25 June: red alert for extreme high temperature over southern Italy, eastern North Macedonia and western Romania. Red alert for thunderstorms over western Poland. (ERCC). Dead sea animals continue to wash onto Sri Lanka’s beaches weeks after a massive cargo ship carrying hazardous chemicals caught fire and then sank off the coast of Colombo, the country’s capital (MSN).
Health
A resolution allowing food, medicine and other humanitarian aid items cross the border from Turkey to Syria is set to expire on 10 July. UN officials appeal for extension of these lifesaving cross-border aid operations (UN News). The pandemic is pushing more people into drug use, while illegal cultivation could also get a boost as joblessness increases globally, the UN has said (Guardian).
COVID-19
International preventative measures against COVID-19, including entry restrictions and in-country mobility remain very fluid, and can be imposed without prior notice. Details 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. 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: Egypt will allow travellers who have taken full doses of approved Covid vaccines to enter without taking a PCR test, the health ministry has said (Guardian). In Germany, chancellor Angela Merkel said that Europe is “on thin ice” in its battle against the coronavirus, as the highly contagious delta variant threatens to undo progress made in reducing infections (Guardian). Indonesian cleric Rizieq Shihab has been sentenced to another four years in prison on Thursday for concealing information about his coronavirus test result (Guardian). Hong Kong will ban passenger flights from Indonesia from Friday, deeming the country’s arrivals “extremely high risk” for the coronavirus (Guardian). Singapore is developing a plan to live more normally with COVID-19. The road map is being developed on the expectation that the virus will become endemic like influenza (Reuters).
Globally, as of 24 June, Johns Hopkins University counts 179,684,849 COVID-19 cases and 3,893,698 deaths, and the WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports 179,065,823 cases and 3,886,347 deaths.
As notable cases: Over 2 million people in England might have had long COVID and suffered one or more COVID-19 symptoms that lasted at least 12 weeks, one of the biggest surveillance studies of the coronavirus found on Thursday (Reuters). In Australia, New South Wales (NSW), reported a double digit rise in new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 for the third straight day as officials fight to contain an outbreak of the highly contagious Delta variant (Reuters). Russia reports 20,182 cases – highest daily total since late January (Guardian). Brazil has registered a single-day record of 115,228 new confirmed coronavirus cases in the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Wednesday, showing new signs of accelerating despite long-delayed vaccination efforts finally gaining steam (Guardian). The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has said that the Delta variant will represent 90% of SARS-CoV-2 viruses circulating in the European Union by the end of August (Reuters).
Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 23 June, Our World in Data reports 2.79 billion administered vaccine doses globally. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 22 June over 2.41 billion administered vaccine doses.
As notable cases: China administers over 24m vaccine doses in one day – total stands at over 1bn (Guardian). The US Food and Drug Administration is planning to add a warning about rare cases of heart inflammation in adolescents and young adults to fact sheets for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. Authorities said, though, that the benefits of the shots appear to clearly outweigh the risk (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.
