Not surprisingly, most nations have restricted non-essential travel since the start of the COVID 19 pandemic. Australia closed its doors when the pandemic struck and has kept them closed ever since, as have all nations except North Korea.
Several EU countries have imposed travel restrictions, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Ireland, as has the UK, after a new coronavirus variant was identified. Other countries such as Canada, Israel, and El Salvador have also imposed some travel restrictions. A few have banned their own citizens from leaving, but not China, and none but Australia is a democracy.
These provisions aim to reduce the spread of the coronavirus over the Christmas period. In particular, between 24 December 2020 and 6 January 2021, freedom of movement on national territory and entry to Italy will be restricted. The new rules will also stop air traffic from the UK on 6 January, a country where the number of variants of the virus in the population has increased.
To keep a brand new variant of the coronavirus out of the country, China plans to extend its pandemic border restrictions for at least another year, according to a Wall Street Journal report on Tuesday. The Chinese government plans to raise its border restrictions to the benefit of “a brand new version of the virus in China,” reported the Wall Avenue Journal on Tuesday. The provision will help foreign persons with COVID-19 who are unable to extend their temporary or temporary stay with the National Immigration Service, which will remain closed until 20 March 2020.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said drug makers should not conduct huge efficacy studies on a new vaccine being developed to fight new variants of coronavirus. The World Health Organisation recently approved AstraZeneca PLCs “COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use, complementing the official approval of the vaccine intended to speed up vaccination in developing countries, the newspaper reported. Tests similar to those for the annual influenza vaccine are easier to perform than the massive efficacy studies required for the initial vaccine to be released.
The World Health Organization has validated two versions of AstraZeneca PLCs “The COVID-19 vaccine, produced by SK Bioscience Co. of South Korea and the Serum Institute of India. Fauci said the prevalence of coronavirus variants is alarming, but added the encouraging news is that the current vaccine appears to be effective against the fastest-spreading variant of Pfizer’s UK biotech vaccine. Pfizer’s biotech vaccine is also said to be highly effective against mutations in the new variant Covid-19.
The United States reported its first case of a new COVID-19 variant in Colorado. India reported six cases of the new Covid 19 strain, and a traveler with a British passport tested positive.
Australia’s international border has been closed since March 2020, but by all accounts, the country has done an excellent job of minimizing coronavirus cases and deaths. As of February 14, 2020, officials from the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA) reported 283,174 positive COVID-19 cases and 3,770 deaths. Over the Christmas period, case numbers soared, nationwide hospital capacity was reduced, and California was forced to order a second stay at home for coronaviruses, but case data from the county continued a months-long downward trend.
Australia’s finance minister, Simon Birmingham, provided an update on the reopening of Australia’s borders in the federal budget this week. The government’s latest plan is for Australia to reopen its borders, not in early 2022, but 2022 at the earliest. On that front, there’s an update that most people won’t like.
The tentative timetable for the second half of 2022 was decided in mid-May at a meeting of the cabinet, the State Council, attended by representatives from China’s Foreign Ministry, the National Health Commission, and other government agencies, one of the participants said.
