World
US to require vaccines for all border crossers in January
President Joe Biden will require essential, nonresident travelers crossing U.S. land borders, such as truck drivers, government and emergency response officials, to be fully vaccinated beginning on Jan. 22, the administration planned to announce Tuesday.
A senior administration official said the requirement, which the White House previewed in October, brings the rules for essential travelers in line with those that took effect earlier this month for leisure travelers, when the U.S. reopened its borders to fully vaccinated individuals.
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Essential travelers entering by ferry will also be required to be fully vaccinated by the same date, the official said. The official spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to preview the announcement.
The rules pertain to non-U.S. nationals. American citizens and permanent residents may still enter the U.S. regardless of their vaccination status, but face additional testing hurdles because officials believe they more easily contract and spread COVID-19 and in order to encourage them to get a shot.
The Biden administration pushed back the requirement for essential travelers by more than two months from when it went into effect on Nov. 8 for non-essential visitors to prevent disruptions, particularly among truck drivers who are vital to North American trade. While most cross-border traffic was shut down in the earliest days of the pandemic, essential travelers have been able to transit unimpeded.
Even with the delay, though, Norita Taylor, spokeswoman for the trucking group Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, criticized the vaccination requirement, calling it an example of “how unnecessary government mandates can force experienced owner-operators and independent truckers out of business.”
“These requirements are another example of how impractical regulations will send safe drivers off the road,” she said.
Read: Covaxin cleared by UK, relief for Indian students, tourists
The latest deadline is beyond the point by which the Biden administration hopes to have large businesses require their employees to be vaccinated or tested weekly under an emergency regulation issued by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. That rule is now delayed by litigation, but the White House has encouraged businesses to implement their own mandates regardless of the federal requirement with the aim of boosting vaccination.
About 47 million adults in the U.S. remain unvaccinated, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Covaxin cleared by UK, relief for Indian students, tourists
China and India's Covid vaccines have been approved by the U.K. for travel into the country, clearing the way for tourists and foreign students who have been fully immunized with them to enter.
Immunizations from China's Sinovac Biotech Ltd., state-owned Sinopharm, and India's Bharat Biotech International Ltd. have joined the list that the U.K. uses to grant entry with proof of full vaccination, according to a notice issued by the Department for Transport and Department of Health and Social Care on Monday, reports NDTV.
Read: Serum Institute of India to start Covishield supply to COVAX countries
Now all seven Covid shots that have received emergency backing from the World Health Organization will be recognized by the U.K., including India's Covaxin, which got the agency's nod in early November. The U.K. is following Australia, which last month expanded the number of shots it recognizes, and the U.S., which said it would accept all WHO-approved vaccines when it opened its borders to foreign travelers this month.
The U.K. decision should allow tens of thousands of Chinese students given home-grown shots to attend school there. Universities have received record numbers of undergraduate applications from Chinese nationals, according to an October report released by UCAS, a U.K. universities admission service provider. Sinovac and Sinopharm shots are the most widely used in China, which has vaccinated more than 80% of its 1.4 billion population.
Read:UK rules recognising Covaxin for inbound travel come into effect from today
China accounts for the majority of foreign students in the U.K., and their families contribute significant revenue to universities there every year, data from U.K.'s Higher Education Statistics Agency shows. More than 4,500 Chinese students applied for undergraduate admission to colleges and universities in the U.K. this year, an increase of about one-third since the global Covid-19 pandemic began.
Visitors to the U.K. who are not fully vaccinated are required to get Covid tests and quarantine for 10 days.
Serum Institute of India to start Covishield supply to COVAX countries
The Serum Institute of India (SII) will start COVID-19 vaccines supply to COVAX countries soon, sources said on Monday.
Serum Institute of India was supposed to start Covishield vaccine supply to COVAX countries from Monday, after it received approval from the government of India, to supply COVID vaccines to other countries, reports ANI.
Read:Made-in-India stealth fighter project set to take off in 2022
"The first consignment from the Pune facility of Serum Institute of India was scheduled to leave for Nepal today. However, due to some reason, it has been delayed by two to three days," said SII sources.
"However the clarity on the exact date of the consignment dispatch is still awaited," sources added.
Earlier, the government of India has allowed the SII to start the supply of vaccines to other countries in the world. The supply of COVID vaccines to other countries was banned by the government in April this year.
Read:Indian PM scraps three contentious farm laws
Earlier, in a tweet Serum Institute of India's chairman, Adar Poonawala had said that around 200 million doses of Covishield are stockpiled with the states in India.
Being the world's largest manufacturer of vaccines, SII now produces over 120 million doses of Covishield every month, and according to some sources, there are over 150 million doses stockpiled in the manufecturer'sshalini bhardwaj Pune facility.
Bus crash in Bulgaria kills at least 45 people
A bus crash in western Bulgaria early Tuesday has killed at least 45 people, authorities said.
The bus, registered in North Macedonia, crashed around 2 a.m. and there were children among the victims, authorities said. Seven people were taken to hospitals for treatment.
The cause of the crash was not immediately confirmed, but it appeared that the bus hit a highway guard rail, crashed and caught fire.
Officials said an investigation will be launched.
Also read: Bus crash in rugged Nepal district leaves 28 dead, 15 hurt
Bulgarian news agency Novinite said representatives from North Macedonia’s embassy visited a hospital where some of the victims were taken.
Photos taken shortly after the crash showed the bus engulfed in flames with plumes of thick, black smoke rising from the scene.
Bulgarian Caretaker Prime Minister Stefan Yanev visited the site of the crash and told reporters it was “a huge tragedy.”
“I take this opportunity to send my condolences to the relatives of the victims,” Yanev said. “Let’s hope we learn lessons from this tragic incident and we can prevent such incidents in the future.”
North Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev told Bulgarian television channel bTV that he had spoken to one of the bus survivors.
“One of the passengers told me that he was asleep and woke up from an explosion,” Zaev told bTV, adding that the authorities will gather information that is “important for the families of the dead and the survivors.”
Also read: 15 die in bus-truck collision in India
Oliver Varhelyi, a European Union Commissioner, sent his condolences to the families and friends of those affected by the crash.
“Terrible news about the tragic bus accident in Bulgaria in early morning hours,” Varhelyi wrote online. “My thoughts & condolences are with the families and friends of those who died as well as with the people and the authorities of North Macedonia.”
In 2019, Bulgaria, an EU nation of 7 million, had the second-highest road fatality rate in the 27-nation bloc with 89 people killed per million population, according to European Commission data.
At least 4 killed in southern China dormitory collapse
At least four people have died in the collapse of a workers’ dormitory in the southern Chinese province of Jiangxi, state media report.
The six-story building in the province’s Ganjiang New District tumbled down Monday evening, they said.
The building housed workers who had originally worked at a local pharmaceutical plant and most of the residents were elderly, according to state broadcaster CCTV and other outlets. The building was constructed in 1995 mainly out of prefabricated slabs and was considered to be poor quality, they said.
Also read: Search ends in Chinese hotel collapse that killed 17 people
Photos and video showed rescue crews searching through a pile of rubble under floodlights. Part of the building, one of several identical structures in the compound, remained standing.
China has sought to improve construction quality and industrial safety with the threat of prosecution, but accidents still occur as companies cut corners to save costs.
Aging infrastructure is also a growing problem, with gas line explosions a particular threat, along with weak adherence to safety standards for the handling of volatile chemicals.
Also read: Nigeria building collapse deaths climb to 36, dozens missing
French prime minister positive for COVID-19, as cases rise
France's prime minister tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday, hours after returning from a visit to neighboring Belgium and just as France is seeing a nationwide resurgence of infections, according to his office.
The positive test also means that his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo and four other minister immediately went into quarantine since they met with Castex for talks in Brussels earlier Monday.
French Prime Minister Jean Castex will adapt his schedule for the coming 10 days to continue his activities in isolation, his office said. Officials at the prime minister's headquarters did not comment on whether Castex has any virus symptoms.
Also read: As virus surges in Eastern Europe, leaders slow to act
One of Castex's daughters tested positive Monday after her father returned from a meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo in Brussels, and Castex himself then took two tests that were both positive, his office said.
De Croo's office said he will be tested Wednesday and will self-isolate while awaiting the result, as will the foreign affairs, defense, justice and home ministers.
“Since Prime Minister De Croo received the French Prime Minister for security talks, he has immediately interrupted his activities,” a statement from his office said.
Also read: Russia hits new record for coronavirus infections
While 75% of France's population is vaccinated, the number of virus infections has risen quickly in recent weeks. Hospitalizations and deaths linked to the virus are also rising in France, though are so far well below the crisis levels of earlier surges.
French President Emmanuel Macron contracted COVID-19 last December, and other government ministers have also had the virus.
Is travel safe during the pandemic this holiday season?
It depends. It can be safe if you're fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but officials say people who haven't gotten the shots should delay travel.
Regardless of vaccination status, all travelers should keep taking precautions like avoiding indoor, unmasked crowds, says Dr. Keith Armitage, an infectious disease expert at Case Western Reserve University.
“The delta variant has really brought us back to an earlier time in the pandemic,” he says.
Also read: UK rules recognising Covaxin for inbound travel come into effect from today
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says not to travel if you're sick, or if you tested positive for COVID-19 and your isolation period isn't over yet — even if you're fully vaccinated. Unvaccinated people who decide to travel should get a COVID-19 test one to three days before travel and three to five days after returning.
All travelers must still wear masks on trains, planes and other indoor public transportation areas, the agency says.
Also read: US reopens to international travel, allows happy reunions
Airlines say plane cabins are low risk since they have good air circulation and filtration. However, there is no requirement for vaccination or testing before domestic flights, and passengers can remove their face masks while eating or drinking.
Hotels aren’t risky for the vaccinated as long as they wear masks around strangers, Armitage says. More fraught are family gatherings with unvaccinated individuals, particularly for those who are older or have health problems.
Health experts suggest looking at the case levels and masking rules in the place you are visiting before you travel.
UK rules recognising Covaxin for inbound travel come into effect from today
The changes announced by the United Kingdom, adding India's Covaxin to the list of approved Covid-19 vaccines for international travellers, will come into effect from November 22. This means that thousands of travellers from India, who have been inoculated with the Bharat Biotech-manufactured jab, will not have to self-isolate after arrival in Britain, reported Hindusthan Times.
The UK government has also added China’s Sinovac and Sinopharm in its list of approved vaccines, benefiting fully vaccinated people from the United Arab Emirates and Malaysia too. Around one billion doses of these three Covid-19 vaccines have been delivered worldwide.
Also read: 77.8% efficacy, robust antibody response: 5 points from Lancet's new study on Covaxin
The changes were announced earlier this month, after the World Health Organization (WHO) cleared their “emergency-use listing”.
The WHO issued an emergency-use listing for Covaxin on November 3.
The UK began recognising Covishield, the Indian version of the AstraZeneca vaccine, for inbound travel from October 4.
It also began accepting India’s vaccine certificates from October 11, ending a travel row that had resulted in UK nationals facing mandatory 10-day quarantine on arrival even if they were fully vaccinated.
Covishield and Covaxin are the two main vaccines being used for India's immunisation programme. The country has also approved Russia-made Sputnik and Johnson & Johnson's single-dose vaccine.
Last week, government officials said that as many as 110 countries have given recognition to Covaxin and Covishield, according to news agency ANI. Among these countries are New Zealand and Australia.
Also read: Covid vaccine: India-made Covaxin approved by WHO for emergency use
Covaxin and Covishield were the first two jabs to receive emergency use authorisation (EUA) from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for the nationwide inoculation drive, which commenced on January 16. The former has been developed by the Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech International Limited, and is the first made-in-India anti-Covid shot. The latter is the Indian variant of Britain's AstraZeneca vaccine, and manufactured locally by the Pune-based Serum Institute of India (SII).
Made-in-India stealth fighter project set to take off in 2022
India is now finally getting set to launch its most ambitious indigenous military aviation project to build a fifth-generation fighter or the advanced medium combat aircraft (AMCA) with advanced stealth features as well as 'supercruise' capabilities, reported the Times of India.
The case for the full-scale engineering development of the twin-engine AMCA prototypes has been finalized and will be sent for approval to the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) by early next year after consultations between the defence and finance ministries, top sources said on Sunday.
Production of fifth-generation jets is an extremely complex and expensive affair, with the American F/A-22 Raptor and F-35 Lightning-II Joint Strike Fighter, the Chinese Chengdu J-20 and Russian Sukhoi-57 being the only operational ones around the globe at present.
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Experts, however, contend the J-20 and Sukhoi-57 fighters are still somewhat short of being true-blue fifth-generation fighters. The 36 Rafales being inducted by IAF, under the Rs 59,000 crore deal inked with France in September 2016, are 4.5-generation jets.
As of now, the development cost of the 25-tonne AMCA is estimated to be around Rs 15,000 crore, with the first prototype’s “rollout” by 2025-26 and production of the Mark-1 jets slated to begin in 2030-31 under the “aggressive timelines” set by DRDO and its Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA). A more realistic timeframe for the AMCA induction to kick-off, however, would be around 2035.
The AMCA project is critical for IAF, which is grappling with just 30-32 fighter squadrons and will not reach its sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons even with “planned inductions” over the next 10-15 years.
The detailed AMCA designing, which was sanctioned in December 2018, meets IAF’s “preliminary staff qualitative requirements” but the requisite powerful engine remains a major problem.
Consequently, the first two squadrons of AMCA Mark-1 will have the existing General Electric-414 afterburning turbofan engine in the 98 Kilonewton thrust class, while the next five mark-2 squadrons will have a more powerful 110 Kilonewton engine. "With the foreign collaborator to be selected by early-2022, the new engine will be concurrently developed indigenously,” said a source.
The advanced stealth features in the swing-role AMCA will range from “serpentine air-intake” and an internal bay for smart weapons to radar absorbing materials and conformal antenna.
The fighter will also have the supercruise capability to achieve supersonic cruise speeds without the use of afterburners as well as data fusion and multi-sensor integration with AESA (active electronically scanned array) radars.
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In the interim, IAF’s planned inductions include 73 Tejas Mark-1A fighters and 10 trainers, which will be delivered in the 2024-2028 timeframe under the Rs 46,898 crore deal inked with Hindustan Aeronautics in February this year.
Then there is the long-pending “Make in India” project for 114 new 4.5-generation fighters with “some fifth-generation capabilities” for over Rs 1.25 lakh crore, which has seven foreign contenders and is likely to get the initial “acceptance of necessity” next year.
There are some discussions also underway about whether India should leapfrog from the Tejas Mark-1A directly to the AMCA. “IAF will certainly require additional Tejas jets after the next 83 are delivered, whether they are enhanced variants of Mark-1A or Mark-2. Many technologies proven in their manufacture will be scaled up for AMCA,” said a source.
After slow starts, some Asian vaccination rates now soaring
When Cambodia rolled out COVID-19 vaccines, lines stretched down entire streets and people left their shoes out to save their places as they sheltered from the sun. But three months into its campaign, just 11% of the population had received at least one dose. In far wealthier Japan, it took two weeks longer to reach that level.
Now both countries boast vaccination rates that rank among the world's best. They are two of several nations in the Asia-Pacific region that got slow starts to their immunization campaigns but have since zoomed past the United States and many nations in Europe.
The countries with high rates include both richer and poorer ones, some with larger populations and some with smaller. But all have experience with infectious diseases, like SARS, and strong vaccine-procurement programs, many of which knew to spread their risk by ordering from multiple manufacturers.
Also read: US mandates vaccines or tests for big companies by Jan. 4
Most started vaccinating relatively late due to complacency amid low infection rates, initial supply issues and other factors. But by the time they did, soaring death tolls in the United States, Britain and India helped persuade even the skeptical to embrace the efforts.
“I did worry, but at the moment we are living under the threat of COVID-19. There is no option but to be vaccinated,” said Rath Sreymom, who rushed to get her daughter, 5-year-old Nuth Nyra, a shot once Cambodia opened its program to her age group this month.
Cambodia was one of the earlier countries in the region to start its vaccination program with a Feb. 10 launch — still two months after the United States and Britain began theirs. As elsewhere in the region, the rollout was slow, and by early May, as the delta variant started to spread rapidly, only 11% of its 16 million people had gotten at least their first shot, according to Our World in Data. That's about half the rate reached in the United States during the same timeframe and a third of the U.K.’s.
Today Cambodia is 78% fully vaccinated — compared to 58% in the U.S. It is now offering booster shots and looking at extending its program to 3- and 4-year-olds.
From the beginning, it has seen strong demand for the vaccine, with the rollout to the general public in April coinciding with a massive surge of cases in India, from which grim images emerged of pyres of bodies outside overwhelmed crematoria.
Also read: Indonesia first to greenlight Novavax COVID-19 vaccine
Prime Minister Hun Sen leveraged his close ties with Beijing to procure nearly 37 million doses from China, some of which were donated. He declared last week that Cambodia's “victory of vaccination” could not have happened without them. The country also received large donations from the U.S., Japan, Britain and from the international COVAX program.
Still, it took time to get sufficient supplies, and many countries in the region that started their programs later struggled even more, especially when the region’s major producer, India, suspended vaccine exports during its spring surge.
“Certainly getting the supply in place was really important for the countries that have done particularly well,” said John Fleming, the Asia-Pacific head of health for the Red Cross. “Then there’s the demand creation side — clearly this is about getting a buy-in from the population and also reaching out to marginalized groups.”
Early in the pandemic, many Asian countries imposed strict lockdown and travel rules that kept the virus largely at bay. As vaccines rolled out in force elsewhere, those low rates sometimes worked against them, giving some people the impression that getting the shot wasn't urgent.
But when the virulent delta variant began ripping through the region, cases rose, encouraging people to sign up.
Some countries, like Malaysia, made extra efforts to ensure that even the hardest-to-reach groups were offered the vaccine. It enlisted the Red Cross’s help to give shots to people living in the country illegally and other groups that may have feared showing up for a government-sponsored vaccination.
“We made the vaccine accessible to all, with no questions asked,” said Professor Sazaly Abu Bakar, director of the Tropical Infectious Diseases and Research Education Center.
As with Cambodia and Japan, Malaysia plodded along in its first three months, giving less than 5% of its 33 million people their first dose in that time, according to Our World in Data.
When cases surged, however, Malaysia bought more doses and established hundreds of vaccination centers, including mega hubs capable of providing up to 10,000 shots a day. The country now has 76% of its population fully vaccinated.
To date, about a dozen countries in the Asia-Pacific region have vaccinated more than 70% of their populations or are on the cusp of doing so, including Australia, China, Japan and Bhutan. In Singapore, 92% are fully vaccinated.
Some countries in Asia, however, have continued to struggle. India celebrated giving its billionth COVID-19 vaccine dose in October, but with a population of nearly 1.4 billion, that translates to a fully vaccinated rate of 29%. Indonesia started earlier than most but has also stumbled, largely due to the challenge of expanding its campaign across the thousands of islands that make up its archipelago.
Japan's vaccine program was notoriously slow — inching along while the world wondered if it would be able to hold the Summer Olympics. It didn't start until mid-February because it required additional clinical testing on Japanese people before using the vaccines — a move that was widely criticized as unnecessary. It was also initially hit with supply issues.
But then it turned a corner. Then-Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga brought in military medial staff to operate mass inoculation centers in Tokyo and Osaka and bent laws to allow dentists, paramedics and lab technicians to give shots alongside doctors and nurses.
The number of daily doses given rose to about 1.5 million in July, and the country is now at about 76% fully inoculated. A large part of Japan's success is due to the public's response, said Makoto Shimoaraiso, a senior official in charge of the country's COVID-19 response.
Many in Japan are skeptical in general about vaccines, but after seeing deaths soar around the world, it has not been an issue.
In fact, retiree Kiyoshi Goto is already clamoring for his next shot, as he looks warily at rising case in Europe.
“I want to get a booster shot as our antibody levels are going down,” the 75-year-old said.
In Phnom Penh, Nuth Nyra was just happy to get her first, saying she was afraid of COVID-19 before — but no more.
“I felt a little bit of pain when I got the shot,” the young girl said in a soft voice at a vaccination center on the outskirts of Cambodia's capital. “But I didn’t cry.”