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

• Ethiopia. The Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet that five members of the UN humanitarian affairs office, OCHA, including senior leaders, were being ordered out of the country, as well as the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF Representative, and a team leader from the UN human rights office, OHCHR (UN News).
• Myanmar. An “urgent” international response is needed to prevent the crisis in Myanmar from becoming a “catastrophe” in the heart of Southeast Asia and beyond, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned (UN News).
• Mali. An attack against peacekeepers in Mali on Saturday which left one Egyptian ‘blue helmet’ dead, and four others seriously injured. Mali remains the most dangerous place to serve as a peacekeeper and having experienced two military coups over the past year, the security situation has deteriorated overall, with State institutions weakened (UN News).
• Honduras. A huge fire destroyed or damaged more than 200 houses and businesses on the Honduran island of Guanaja on Saturday, forcing hundreds of residents to flee for safety and ravaging the tourism-dependent resort, relief authorities said (Reuters).
• Taiwan. The U.S. Department of Defense said China’s increasing military activities near Taiwan were “destabilising and increase the risk of miscalculation” (Reuters).
• Philippines. An initial investigation by the Philippine government has found 154 police officers could be criminally liable over their conduct in President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs, in a rare admission by the state that abuses may have taken place (Reuters).
• Afghanistan. Women in Afghanistan who object to what the Taliban have said and done since returning to power are finding it harder to protest, now that impromptu demonstrations have been banned and previous rallies were broken up by gunfire and beatings (Reuters).
• Hong Kong‘s largest independent trade union disbanded on Sunday, stoking concerns over the space for civil society groups as a national security law stifles dissent in the global financial centre (Reuters).

Natural Disasters

• Oman. Tropical cyclone SHAHEEN made landfall in the afternoon of 3 October in north east Oman.  Media reports casualties (ERCC).
• Iran. An earthquake of 5.6 M occurred in northeastern Khuzestan Province (western Iran) close to the border with Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province, on 4 October at 02.39 UTC (06.09 local time). Media has not reported casualties or damage (ERCC).
• Indonesia. Since the beginning of October, heavy rain has been causing floods, flash floods across several parts of Indonesia, resulting in casualties, displacement and damage (ERCC).
• Mexico. Heavy rain has been affecting Querétaro State over the past few days, causing floods and rivers overflow (especially the San Juan River) and leading to casualties and damage (ERCC).
• Colombia. On 3 October, a landslide event caused by heavy rain occurred in the outskirts of San Luis Municipality (south-east Antioquia Department, north Colombia), resulting in casualties (ERCC).
• Canary Islands. A river of red-hot lava gushing from the Cumbre Vieja volcano on Spain’s La Palma thickened on Monday, after the north side of the crater collapsed the previous night causing spectacular explosions, but authorities ruled out further evacuations (Reuters).

Health

• Afghanistan. Half a million people have been displaced in Afghanistan in recent months, according to U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, a number which will grow if health services, schools and the economy break down (Reuters).
• Venezuela. Venezuelans are increasingly relying on friends and strangers to help pay for Covid treatment, as hyperinflation and soaring health care fees make social media pleas and crowdfunding campaigns the only way to cover costs while infection rates rise, Reuters reports (Guardian).

Of note

• World. Global manufacturing activity took a big hit from supply chain bottlenecks and escalating costs, exacerbated by pandemic-induced factory shutdowns in Asia and signs of slowing Chinese growth, surveys showed on Friday (Reuters).
• United Kingdom. Britain’s supply chains for everything from pork, petrol and poultry to medicines and milk have been strained to breaking point by shortages of labour in the wake of the Brexit and COVID crises (Reuters).
• United States. Regional natural gas markets in the United States are seeing prices for this winter surge along with global record highs – suggesting that the energy bills causing headaches in Europe and Asia will hit the world’s top gas producer before long. Gas prices in Europe and Asia have more than tripled this year, causing manufacturers to curtail activity from Spain to Britain and sparking power crises in China (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:

• Russia. The Kremlin on Monday implored people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, calling it the only way to stop the virus’ spread, as Russian authorities mulled reintroducing health restrictions to cope with daily cases rising to their highest levels since January (Reuters).
• Indonesia will reopen the resort island of Bali to some international travellers next week, a senior minister said (Guardian).
• New Zealand is going to phase out its policy of trying to eliminate the virus, prime minister Jacinda Ardern said on Monday (Guardian).
• United Kingdom. A major change in the rules for international travel in and out of England came into force at 4am BST on Monday morning when the traffic-light system was replaced with a single red list of countries subject to the toughest restrictions (Guardian).

Global cases and deaths. As of 04 October, Johns Hopkins University counts 235,058,353 COVID-19 cases and 4,804,273 deaths, and the WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 04 October 234,609,003 cases and 4,797,368 deaths.

As notable cases:

• Senegal on Monday logged only two new daily COVID-19 infections, the lowest number since the pandemic reached the country and two months after the rate of new cases hovered at record highs, the health ministry said on Monday (Reuters).
• The United States has seen a dramatic drop in the number of Covid cases and hospitalisations in recent weeks, a trend that epidemiologists see as an encouraging sign that the country’s wave of the Delta variant has peaked (Guardian).

Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 03 October, Our World in Data reports 45.7% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 6.33 billion doses have been administered globally, and 26.6 million are now administered each day. Only 2.3% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 03 October over 6.18 billion administered vaccine doses.

As notable cases:

• Nicaragua has authorised two Cuban-made coronavirus vaccines to be used in the Central American nation, the Cuban state-run pharmaceutical corporation BioCubaFarma said on Saturday (Reuters).
• Europe. The European Union’s drugs regulator said on Monday people with weakened immune systems should get a third dose of a Covid vaccine from Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna, but left it to member states to decide if the wider population should get a booster (Guardian).
• Thailand’s government is in talks with Merck & Co to buy 200,000 courses of its experimental antiviral pill for Covid treatment, the latest Asian nation to scramble for supplies of the drug after lagging behind western countries for vaccines (Guardian).
• Thailand rolled out Covid vaccines to high school students for the first time on Monday, as it seeks to boost its immunisation rate ahead of a planned school reopening next month (Guardian).
• Israel. Citizens will now need a third dose of the Covid-19 vaccine if they want the “green pass” that will allow entry to restaurants, gyms and many other venues (Guardian).
• United States. Teachers in New York are supposed to be fully vaccinated against Covid as of today, one of the first such mandates for educators in the US (Guardian).

More on COVID-19

• Denmark. As the second coronavirus winter approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, Denmark and a few other countries where vaccines now protect a large percentage of the population from severe disease are entering a momentous transition: from pandemic to endemic COVID-19, when the virus is still there but ceases to be an overriding public health threat. Researchers are closely watching what happens next, because it could yield valuable information about what lies ahead for the rest of the world (Science).

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.