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

• Mali. Ten unarmed Egyptian peacekeepers from the UN Stabilization Mission in the Central African Republic (MINUSCA) were shot and wounded on Monday (UN News).
• Ethiopia declared a six-month state of emergency on Tuesday after forces from the northern region of Tigray said they were gaining territory and considering marching on the capital Addis Ababa (Reuters). The U.N. human rights chief’s office is receiving ongoing reports of violations in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, including shelling and airstrikes causing civilian deaths, summary executions, large-scale displacement and a worsening humanitarian situation, she said on Wednesday (Reuters).
• Afghanistan. At least 25 people were killed and more than 50 wounded when gunmen attacked Afghanistan’s biggest military hospital after two heavy explosions at the site in central Kabul, officials said (Reuters).
• Nigeria. Gunmen kidnapped four staffers and two of their children from the University of Abuja early Tuesday, the university said, staging the first high-profile attack on a campus in Nigeria’s capital as the nation confronts a wave of mass abductions (WaPo).
• Bosnia. The US-sponsored peace deal that ended war in Bosnia in the 1990s is at risk of unraveling unless the international community takes measures to stop Serb separatists, a peace envoy warned in a report to the United Nations seen by Reuters on Tuesday (CNN).
• Israel, Syria. Israel has launched an aerial attack with a number of missiles targeting an area on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus, Syrian state TV said early on Wednesday, citing a military source (Al Jazeera).
• Haiti. UNICEF warned Tuesday that schools in Haiti are increasingly at the mercy of gangs, with children becoming targets of robbery or ransom. The agency said that at least seven schools in the capital of Port-au-Prince have been forced to pay unidentified gangs in exchange for security in the past two months and that additional institutions have been threatened (AP).
• Mexico. Police found the bullet-ridden bodies of five men and six boys in Mexico’s western state of Michoacan, near the border with the state of Jalisco (AP).
• Peru. The government authorized the military (Bloomberg) to help police maintain order in Lima amid a rise in crime and a planned transportation strike (Bloomberg).

Natural Disasters

• Colombia. A landslide on 2 November in Mallama Municipality (Narino Department, south-western Colombia) has resulted in casualties, displacement and damage (ERCC).
• Guatemala. Heavy rain and strong winds have been affecting most of Guatemala since the beginning of the rainy season (mid-April) causing floods, river overflow and landslides, resulting in casualties, displacement, and damage (ERCC).
• Peru. Heavy rains on 31 October -1 November have triggering floods and flash floods across Jaèn Province (Cajamarca Region, northern Peru) resulting in casualties, displacement, and damage (ERCC).
• Madagascar. The drought-stricken island nation of Madagascar is a ’wakeup call” to what the world can expect in coming years due to climate change, the head of the United Nations’ food aid agency said Tuesday. According to updated WFP figures released Tuesday, close to 30,000 people on Madagascar will be one step away from famine by the end of the year, and some 1.1 million already suffer from severe hunger. The island is struggling with exceptionally warm temperatures, drought and sandstorms (US News).

Health

• Afghanistan. Humanitarian needs are rising rapidly in Afghanistan ahead of winter, when temperatures can dip to -25⁰C. Today, the first of three UNHCR flights, carrying 33 tons of winterization kits, landed in Kabul (UNHCR). One of the main crossings between Afghanistan and Pakistan has reopened after being closed for almost a month (Reuters in MSN).
• West and Central Africa could see a rise in HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths in a few years due to disruptions in health services because of the coronavirus pandemic, the executive director of the U.N. AIDS agency said (Reuters).

Of note

• Nigeria. Rescuers on Wednesday raced to find survivors, two days after a high-rise building under construction collapsed and trapped scores of people in the commercial capital Lagos, as the death toll rose to 22, an emergency official said (Reuters).
• Spain. Algeria has stopped supplying gas through one of its main pipelines that crosses Morocco, a move that could threaten Spain with reduced supplies or higher prices for natural gas as winter approaches and energy costs are soaring (NYT).

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:

• China‘s new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases spiked to a near three-month high and tighter curbs to contain the spread are expected in the capital Beijing ahead of a key gathering of the highest-ranking members of the Communist Party next week (Reuters).
• Greece. Unvaccinated Greeks will need to show a negative COVID-19 test to access state services, banks, restaurants and retail shops as cases hit a new daily record on Tuesday, health authorities said (Reuters).

Global cases and deaths. As of 03 November, Johns Hopkins University counts 247,751,159 COVID-19 cases and 5,017,214 deaths, and the WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 02 November 246,951,274 cases and 5,004,855 deaths.

As notable cases:

• The Netherlands. The Dutch government on Tuesday decided to re-impose measures, including the wearing of face masks, aimed at slowing the latest spike in COVID-19 infections, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said (Reuters).
• World. During the week 25 to 31 October 2021, a slight upward trend in new weekly cases was observed, with just over 3 million new cases reported. Apart from the European Region, which reported a 6% increase in new weekly cases as compared to the previous week, other regions reported declines or stable trends. New weekly deaths increased by 8% as compared with the previous week, with over 50 000 new fatalities. Cumulatively, over 246 million confirmed cases and nearly 5 million deaths have been reported (WHO).

Vaccination campaigns around the world continue. As of 02 November, Our World in Data reports 49.7% of the world population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. 7.13 billion doses have been administered globally, and 27.81 million are now administered each day. Only 3.9% of people in low-income countries have received at least one dose. The WHO COVID-19 dashboard reports as of 01 November over 6.89 billion administered vaccine doses.

As notable cases:

• Hong Kong will roll out booster doses of COVID-19 vaccines from next week, Health Secretary Sophia Chan said on Wednesday, as authorities ramp up efforts to convince Beijing to allow crossborder travel to mainland China (Reuters).
• India. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday said it had approved Indian drugmaker Bharat Biotech’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use (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.