COVID-19: US adds Canada to its ‘do not travel’ advisory list

Air Canada signs are seen at the empty baggage claim area of Terminal 5 at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) during the outbreak of the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, April 16, 2020, in Los Angeles.
(VALERIE MACON / AFP)

ADDIS ABABA / BERLIN / HELSINKI / BRUSSELS / RABAT / WASHINGTON – The US State Department has raised its travel advisory alert for Canada to a "level 4 – do not travel" status amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The department, along with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Monday warned against travel to Switzerland, Azerbaijan and Estonia because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases in those countries.

Separately, an advisory panel to the CDC on Monday unanimously recommended the Pfizer Incand BioNTech SE COVID-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, an important step that could help accelerate vaccine mandates in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration last week granted full approval to the vaccine that was previously available under the agency's emergency use authorization (EUA), which had allowed the shots to be rolled out rapidly to Americans.

Health officials hope the formal approval and CDC recommendation will spur more Americans to get vaccinated. With full FDA approval, some companies and states have begun mandating COVID-19 vaccination.

Vaccination rates remain low in many parts of the United States, contributing to a big surge in hospitalizations due to the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Some panel members said increasing vaccinations before the fall season was critical to getting children back to schools safely.

Regulators have authorized a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for those with weak immune systems, and the US government has said it plans to make booster doses available to more Americans in September.

A volunteer directs vehicles into Zwartkops Raceway drive-through vaccination site, in Centurion, South Africa, to receive a dose of COVID-19 vaccine, on Aug 13, 2021. (LUCA SOLA / AFP)

Africa

The large number of people in Africa with a weakened immune system makes it ripe for the development of COVID-19 variants, the head of a South African genomics institute said. 

The study of an individual with advanced HIV and limited adherence to anti-retroviral treatment showed that a COVID-19 infection persisted for more than 200 days and “multimutational escape variants” developed, Tulio de Oliveira, the head of the institute said. 

Africa is home to the bulk of the world’s HIV infections, with South Africa alone having about 7.7 million affected individuals, and high burdens of diseases such as tuberculosis. HIV causes AIDS, a disease that affects the immune system.

We “need to control the pandemic in the continent with the largest immunosuppressed individual population in the world,” de Oliveira, who heads the KwaZulu-Natal Research Innovation and Sequencing Platform, said in a presentation to an immunology conference on Monday.  

“There is good evidence that prolonged infection in immunocompromised individuals is one mechanism for the emergence” of COVID-19 variants, he said. 

De Oliveira urged a faster rate of vaccinations in South Africa to prevent the development of further mutations. 

“South Africa really risks becoming one of the mutation factories of the world,” he said. 

Belgium

Health authorities in Brussels began offering COVID-19 jabs in supermarkets and shopping centers on Monday to increase vaccination rates in the Belgian capital that have not kept up with Belgium's rapid inoculation roll-out.

Host to the European Union and NATO, Brussels has only given vaccinations to about 65 percent of its population, much lower than the surrounding Belgian regions, mainly because people did not respond to requests to go to vaccination centres.

"We're really trying to bring, as much as possible, the vaccine to the people," Inge Neven, crisis manager responsible for the COVID-19 response in Brussels, told Reuters.

Belgium has recorded 25,360 deaths from the coronavirus, one of the world's highest tolls per capita.

Neven said Brussels was home to 182 different nationalities, which made the job of reaching people to encourage them to go to a vaccination centre much harder.

Within Brussels, vaccination is also lower in poorer neighbourhoods, even though many are just short walk from the steel and glass EU buildings and the leafy suburbs inhabited by diplomats and officials.

Botswana 

Botswana has recorded its first case of the highly mutated C.1.2 COVID-19 variant first detected in South Africa, according to health officials.

Deputy Coordinator for the Presidential Task Force for COVID-19 Mosepele Mosepele made the announcement during a weekly public update on the pandemic.

He said one patient was found with the variant, adding it was difficult to know if it had already spread or was just an isolated case.

According to the World Health Organization, the new variant contains mutations that have been identified in all four variants of concern (Alpha, Beta, Delta and Gamma) as well as three variants of interest (Kappa, Eta and Lambda).

Mosepele said Botswana is the ninth country in the world to confirm the variant and the only other in the region apart from South Africa.

Meanwhile, new infections and deaths are falling as Botswana emerges from its deadliest wave ever in July since the start of the pandemic.

Botswana has so far recorded 156,927 positive cases with 2,261 related deaths. To date 320,308 people have received one vaccine dose and 207,695 are fully vaccinated. 

Brazil

Brazil became the latest major country to pass the US in the percentage of its citizens who have had at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine as the government’s inoculation campaign picks up speed and resistance to the shots fades away. 

About 63 percent of Brazilians have now received at least one dose, versus 62 percent of people in the US. according to Bloomberg’s COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker.

While Brazil was late to start administering vaccines, deploying the first shots in mid-January and often struggling with shortages, the campaign has gained momentum. 

Relying on a de-centralized public health-care system that’s known for excelling in mass immunizations, the country has regularly deployed more than 2 million jabs a day this month, according to the 10-day moving average compiled by Bloomberg. 

Vaccine hesitancy has also faded, with some states like Sao Paulo reporting an immunization rate of more than 97 percent among adults when it comes to first doses. 

Full immunization, however, is still slow. Brazil’s dependence of foreign supplies and long interval between doses – Pfizer Inc and AstraZeneca Plc shots are being given 12 weeks apart, while Sinovac Biotech Ltd’s jabs are one month apart – has meant just 28 percent of the population had completed the immunization, almost half the US’ level. 

Passengers with face masks and suitcases walk in the BER Willy Brandt airport in Brandenburg, near Schoenefeld and Berlin, on July 28, 2021. (STEFANIE LOOS / AFP)

European Union

The European Commission said on Tuesday that 70 percent of the European Union's adult population had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, hitting a target it had set at the beginning of the year.

The announcement marks an important milestone in the EU vaccination strategy after a slow start, but it also masks big differences among EU countries, with some nations being well above the 70 percent goal while others in the poorer eastern region of the bloc being far behind.

"70 percent of adults in EU are fully vaccinated. I want to thank the many people making this great achievement possible," the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said on Twitter.

On Monday, European Union governments agreed to remove the United States from the EU's safe travel list, meaning US visitors and those from five other countries are likely to face tighter controls, such as COVID-19 tests and quarantines.

Israel, Kosovo, Lebanon, Montenegro, and North Macedonia have also been taken off. The list seeks to unify travel rules across the bloc, although it does not bind individual EU nations, which are free to determine their own border policies.

Already some EU countries, such as Germany and Belgium, categorize the United States as red, requiring tests and quarantines, while for neighbours France and the Netherlands, the United States is classified as safe.

The list is largely compiled on the basis of the COVID-19 situation in each country, with reciprocity also a factor.

Average daily US COVID-19 cases have risen to more than 450 per million people in the week to Aug 28, compared with below 40 in mid-June when the European Union added the United States to its list, figures from Our World in Data show.

Case rates for Israel, Kosovo and Montenegro are even higher, the data shows.

The EU safe list now comprises 17 countries, including Canada, Japan and New Zealand.

The bloc still lets in most non-EU visitors who are fully vaccinated, although tests and periods of quarantine can apply, depending on the EU country of arrival.

Despite EU appeals, Washington does not allow European citizens to visit freely. The bloc itself has been divided between those concerned about the lack of reciprocity and increased US cases and others more reliant on tourism and reluctant to restrict US travelers.

France

France aims to have administered a third shot of a COVID-19 vaccine to some 18 million people by early 2022, a health ministry official said on Tuesday.

Last week, France's top health advisory body (HAS) recommended a booster shot for those aged 65 and over and for those with existing medical conditions that put them at risk.

Government data shows nearly 72 percent of the total French population had received one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine as of Aug 30. A little more than 65 percent had received two doses or one dose after having been diagnosed with COVID-19.

Finland

Students in upper secondary schools and vocational institutions in the Finnish capital are to be directly vaccinated against COVID-19 between Sept 1-10, the City of Helsinki announced on Monday.

Vaccinations will be given to every student in these institutions, regardless of their municipality of residence, and no appointment will be required, it said in a press release.

If a student has already received their first vaccine dose, he/she will be able to get their second at school.

Timo Lukkarinen, medical director at the City of Helsinki, said 74 percent of 16-19-year-olds in Helsinki have received their first vaccine dose, and the city hopes this rate will be increased by improved availability of vaccines.

ALSO READ: EU economies rebound strongly, but pandemic remains a concern

In this file photo taken on Aug 03, 2021, a mother and her 12-years-old twin girls watch an information video prior to the vaccination of the young girls with the BioNTech vaccine at the district vaccination center in Ludwigsburg, southern Germany, amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. (THOMAS KIENZLE / AFP)

Germany

Despite a slowdown of COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Germany, 60.3 percent of the country's population have been fully vaccinated, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) said on Monday.

To date, more than 50.1 million people in Germany have been fully vaccinated, while around 54 million received at least one vaccine dose, according to the RKI, the federal government agency for disease control and prevention.

Around 79,100 vaccine doses were administered in Germany on Sunday, compared to over 1.4 million doses – the most daily vaccinations, in early June, according to the RKI.

Minister of Health Jens Spahn said on Twitter that 31 percent, or 1.4 million of young Germans aged 12-17, have already received at least one vaccine dose in order to have a "safe fall and winter."

Vaccination for children under the age of 12 would also soon be possible. "From what I hear, this could be the case as early as September," Lower Saxony's Minister President Stephan Weil told the Rheinische Post on Monday.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)

GlaxoSmithKline Plc said it’s starting a final stage clinical trial on a COVID-19 vaccine candidate designed by South Korean drugmaker SK Bioscience Co.

The study will enroll 4,000 participants and compare the shot to that of AstraZeneca Plc and Oxford University, Glaxo said Tuesday. The UK drugmaker is providing an adjuvant, which is a substance that can enhance the response to vaccines.

Another vaccine would help reduce the scarcity of shots as countries such as the US and Israel start giving booster shots even before many poor countries have yet to get their vaccination drives up to speed. 

The Delta variant has spurred concern that the protection of jabs by Pfizer Inc and BioNTech SE may wear off over time.

Studies on vaccines are shifting their protocol as it’s no longer considered ethical to test them against a placebo. 

Instead, they’re being put head-to-head against other vaccines. France’s Valneva SA is testing its shot against the AstraZeneca-Oxford rival as well.

Glaxo said results are expected in the first half of next year. The UK drugmaker has been developing adjuvants for other vaccines developed by Sanofi and Medicago. Those are also in phase-three testing.

Global tally

Coronavirus cases worldwide surpassed 217.16 million while the global death toll topped 4.51 million, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Ireland

Ireland’s cabinet will meet today to consider a proposal that would end almost all COVID-19 restrictions by Oct 22. The proposal includes a phased return to the workplace from Sept 20, according to national broadcaster RTE. 

The unwinding of restrictions from Sept 6 would be contingent on the level of COVID-19 cases and on 90 percent of adults being fully vaccinated. 

Measures would include indoor venues being able to use up to 60 percent and outdoor venues 75 percent of capacity for those who are fully vaccinated. Masks are still likely to be required in the health and retail sectors and on public transport, RTE said.

Morocco

Morocco announced on Monday 2,676 new COVID-19 cases, taking the tally of infections in the North African country to 856,049.

The death toll rose to 12,540 with 103 new fatalities, while 2,524 people are in intensive care units.

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico is once again tightening restrictions amid a surge in cases. Starting Sept 2, most public-facing businesses – including restaurants, shopping centers and nightclubs – must close from midnight to 5 am, and alcohol sales are prohibited during those hours. 

While masks are already required in enclosed areas, they will also now be required outdoors in spaces where there are more than 50 people.

Puerto Rico’s Health Department said 81 percent of the eligible population has had at least one dose of vaccine and 70 percent have had two doses. Even so, cases continue to rise. 

ALSO READ: Previous COVID-19 patients prevent Delta better than Pfizer

United States

The US State Department has raised its travel advisory alert for Canada to a "level 4 – do not travel" status amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it said in a statement on Tuesday.

The department, along with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Monday warned against travel to Switzerland, Azerbaijan and Estonia because of a rising number of COVID-19 cases in those countries.

Separately, an advisory panel to the CDC on Monday unanimously recommended the Pfizer Incand BioNTech SE COVID-19 vaccine for people age 16 and older, an important step that could help accelerate vaccine mandates in the United States.

The Food and Drug Administration last week granted full approval to the vaccine that was previously available under the agency's emergency use authorization (EUA), which had allowed the shots to be rolled out rapidly to Americans.

Health officials hope the formal approval and CDC recommendation will spur more Americans to get vaccinated. With full FDA approval, some companies and states have begun mandating COVID-19 vaccination.

Vaccination rates remain low in many parts of the United States, contributing to a big surge in hospitalizations due to the highly contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus.

Some panel members said increasing vaccinations before the fall season was critical to getting children back to schools safely.

Regulators have authorized a third dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines for those with weak immune systems, and the US government has said it plans to make booster doses available to more Americans in September.

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