In addition to revising its mask guidance on Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also quietly updated its testing recommendations for people who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

The agency now advises that vaccinated people be tested for the virus if they come into contact with someone with Covid-19, even if they have no symptoms. Previously, the health agency had said that fully vaccinated people did not need to be tested after exposure to the virus unless they were experiencing symptoms.

“Our updated guidance recommends vaccinated people get tested upon exposure regardless of symptoms,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, the agency’s director, said in an email to The New York Times. “Testing is widely available.”

Fully vaccinated people should wear a mask in public indoor spaces after exposure, the agency said. Three to five days later, they should be tested for the virus.

If the results come back negative, they can stop wearing masks indoors. If results are positive, the infected should isolate at home for 10 days.

Although people who are fully vaccinated may still get infected with the virus, these breakthrough infections tend to be mild or asymptomatic. The vaccines authorized in the United States provide strong protection against the worst outcomes, including severe disease, hospitalization and death, including from the Delta variant.

The new testing recommendation came on the same day that the agency recommended that fully vaccinated people return to wearing masks indoors under some circumstances. When levels of community transmission are high, everyone, regardless of vaccination status, should wear masks indoors when they are in public, the agency now says.

The agency also recommended that vaccinated people in close contact with unvaccinated people, including children under age 12, consider wearing masks in public indoor spaces whatever the transmission rates in the local community. In a shift, the agency also recommended universal masking in schools.

For months, the C.D.C. had resisted recommending masks for vaccinated people, even as the highly contagious Delta variant spread and the World Health Organization recommended continued mask wearing.

The change was prompted by new data suggesting that even vaccinated people who are infected by Delta may carry large amounts of the virus and transmit it to others, Dr. Walensky said at a news briefing on Tuesday.

Source: The New York Times

Kenya is grappling with the COVID-19 Delta variant, which recently resulted in the western part of the country being put into lockdown. It now threatens the capital, Nairobi.

A modelling forecast from the Kenya Medical Research Institute in June 2021 warned of an imminent fourth wave with attendant risks of health service demand exceeding capacity. The Delta variant is much more transmissible than its predecessors, such as the Alpha variant, but it does not appear to cause more severe disease.

The modelling study is a welcome alert to the dangers of the Delta variant. Its findings should be used to inform preparedness by both public and private sectors. In other parts of the world, the variant has spread fast including in those who are partially immunised, overwhelming health services.

The big concern is how Kenya will fare this time around.

The Kenyan government reacted quickly to the previous three waves. But the public has felt some pandemic fatigue. And the economy and social life in general have been negatively affected.

Two doses of the main vaccines provide good protection against hospitalisation and severe disease. The country’s rollout so far has been limited to COVAX supplies and donations, and a concerted effort to procure more using local and donor funding is necessary.

Kenya’s strengths – and the gaps

As of July 29, there were 199,941 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 3,895 deaths in the country. A partial explanation for the low fatality number is Kenya’s younger population with fewer co-morbidities and less obesity. But there may be other explanations too. It is likely that there is already a high percentage of the population that has been exposed to COVID-19 from earlier waves and so will have some immunity against it.

The government has done some things well. There was, and continues to be, prompt national action with a national emergency response committee, coherent mitigation messaging, daily briefings by the Ministry of Health on case numbers, positivity rates and hospital utilisation, and dedicated treatment facilities.

The health system as a whole has shown resilience after an initial decline when the pandemic started, with most healthcare services, like maternity care, now back to normal or near normal. In addition, coordination of testing across the country has been instituted and includes genomic testing.

Because of the limited supplies of available vaccines, only about 2% of the population has been vaccinated. So far, the Astra Zeneca has been the only available vaccine but others including the Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer are expected in August. There are ambitious plans to cover the whole adult population by 2022 using donated  and locally procured vaccines.

There are, however, areas where more action is needed, particularly in the face of a potential fourth wave.

The main gaps are in the capacity of the health system. Oxygen provision is low especially in the public sector. In addition, there are too few intensive care unit beds.

And then there’s the need to ramp up vaccination efforts. Vaccine procurement is limited to the government. In addition, administration is being done by the government distributing – from their limited supplies – to public and selected private facilities. As vaccine supplies increase globally, allowing non-public sector provision would help raise coverage.

Adherence to mitigation measures such as mask wearing and social distancing is limited. Myths about COVID-19 abound, and there is deep scepticism about the threat the virus poses.

Effective responses are also being hampered by vaccine hesitancy and government corruption scandals.

What needs to be done

The new Delta variant is a serious threat because it is much more easily transmitted. Prompt government action is necessary to put prevention measures in place and enforce them.

A major effort is needed to help hospitals test and report results quickly for optimal patient care, particularly in the public sector. The government took a decision early in the pandemic to limit antibody testing to research studies. This constrains both clinical care and surveillance of the prevalence of COVID-19 in the population which would otherwise give more insight into the nature of the pandemic in Kenya and population exposure.

More testing and contact tracing should be in place.

There also needs to be better coordination of bed availability across counties and the country.

The potential for larger gatherings to be super-spreaders is a clear concern. The government should bring people and policymakers together, working with communities to reduce complacency, improve education and awareness and to enforce adherence to mitigation measures.

The vaccination programme needs to be expanded and expedited. Using local knowledge and networks is essential to prepare people and health services for a rapid vaccination scale-up.

In terms of treatment and care, the single most important aspect is oxygen. It is vital to be able to give higher levels of oxygen such as with a high flow nasal canula. These are available in some private facilities but in very short supply in the public facilities.

In the previous surge in March 2021, few of the public hospitals had sufficient oxygen and even private hospitals were running out of supplies. While many of the public hospitals had facilities for generating oxygen, some were not working. This is all exacerbated by delays and high costs for medical equipment and repair parts, often costing double the amounts paid in Europe or North America.

And, finally, Kenyans themselves have a responsibility to take precautions and get vaccinated. They should avoid large gatherings, such as political rallies.

Source: The Conversation

The US remains closed to tourists from the EU and the UK – a situation that has prompted frustration and urgent calls for the reopening of international travel to vaccinated individuals by industry and countries.

The UK and EU states have both slammed the decision of the administration of US president Joe Biden to extend travel restrictions, calling instead for reciprocity.

Europeans are currently banned from entering the US, while Americans can visit Europe just with proof of vaccination or a negative test. British citizens are also forbidden from entering the country, while fully vaccinated US travellers will be allowed into Britain without the need to quarantine from next Monday (2 August).

The White House said earlier this week that the extension of travel restrictions was due to concerns over the more-transmissible Delta variant.

Germany’s coordinator for transatlantic affairs, Peter Beyer, has urged Biden’s administration to reconsider the entry ban for Europeans, arguing that such measures are hampering German businesses.

“Industry above all is waiting desperately for a loosening,” he said in an interview published on Wednesday (28 July). “We’re not talking peanuts here”.

“We urgently need fact-based reciprocity in the entry rules between the US and the Schengen area,” he added, referring to the border-free region that encompasses most EU countries.

After the UK announced on Wednesday the loosening of travel restrictions on US and EU tourists, British transport minister Grant Shapps said that he expected a similar move from the US in due time.

“We can only set the rules at our end,” he said.

“We cannot change that on the other side, but we do expect that in time they will release that executive order, which was actually signed by the previous president and bans inward travel,” Shapps added, according to the AP.

Earlier this week, the European Commission said that they are in talks with its US counterparts, arguing that “there is a strong case for the US to reopen to travellers from Europe”.

Meanwhile, industry players have called for the resumption of transatlantic travelling, arguing that closing borders have not prevented the Delta variant from spreading across the US.

“Given the high rates of vaccination on both sides of the Atlantic, it is possible to begin safely welcoming back vaccinated visitors,” said Tori Emerson Barnes from the US travel association in a statement.

“We respectfully urge the Biden administration to revisit its decision in the very near term and begin reopening international travel to vaccinated individuals, starting with air corridors between the US and nations with similar vaccination rates,” they added.

Source: EU Observer

With certain destinations reopening for travel it may seem as though things are heading back to normal, but it is far from true. The United States for example has announced that the country will continue its international travel restrictions for now as the delta variant becomes a cause for concern. The authorities in America are currently concerned regarding the surge in this deadly variant coupled with the opposition to vaccination.

Earlier, President Joe Biden had said that the administration is in process of deciding as to how soon the country can lift the ban. This is mainly in regards to the ban on European inbound travel, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel had raised the issue during her visit to the White House. Now that the authorities have cleared the air, it remains to be seen whether the delta variant goes away anytime soon.

Jen Psaki, Press Secretary, White House, said that driven by the delta variant, the cases in America are rising. This is particularly true for the unvaccinated people. She said that this trend is very likely to continue for the coming days. Authorities are also taking a look at its policies on mask wearing.

Already, the Department of Veterans Affairs has made it mandatory for its health care workers to get vaccinated. This is the first major federal agency to do so.

The delta variant is now a major concern in countries across the world, and US health officials are thinking of changing its policies on wearing masks in order to curb the spread. The variant was first detected in India where it caused numerous deaths, crippling the health care system of the country. There is now a 32 percent increase in hospitalisation in the US from the previous week.

Source: Times Travel

Global airline passenger demand performance for June 2021 showed a slight improvement in both international and domestic air travel markets. However, overall demand remains significantly below pre-Covid-19 levels owing to untiring international travel restrictions.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) this week announced that African airlines’ traffic fell 68.2% in June versus the same month two years ago, an improvement from the 71.5% decline in May compared to May 2019. June capacity however contracted 60.0% versus June 2019 as the load factor declined 14.5 percentage points to 56.5%.

Meanwhile, total demand for air travel in June 2021 (measured in revenue passenger kilometres or RPKs) was down 60.1% compared to June 2019. This was a small improvement over the 62.9% decline recorded in May 2021 versus May 2019. IATA pointed out that comparisons between 2021 and 2020 monthly results are distorted by the extraordinary impact of the global pandemic.

Moreover, international passenger demand in June was 80.9% below June 2019, an improvement from the 85.4% decline recorded in May 2021 versus two years ago.

Total domestic demand was down 22.4% versus pre-crisis levels (June 2019), a slight gain over the 23.7% decline recorded in May 2021 versus the 2019 period.

“We are seeing movement in the right direction, particularly in some key domestic markets. But the situation for international travel is nowhere near where we need to be. June should be the start of peak season, but airlines were carrying just 20% of 2019 levels. That’s not a recovery, it’s a continuing crisis caused by government inaction,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

In terms of cargo, African airlines’ international demand for June increased 33.5% compared to the same month in 2019, which was the strongest performance of all global regions. The increase was however notable on small volumes as African carriers carry 2% of global cargo). Overall international cargo capacity in June decreased by 4.9% compared to the same month in 2019.

“Air cargo is doing brisk business as the global economy continues its recovery from the Covid-19 crisis. With first-half demand 8% above pre-crisis levels, air cargo is a revenue lifeline for many airlines as they struggle with border closures that continue to devastate the international passenger business. Importantly, the strong first-half performance looks set to continue,” said Walsh.

Source: IATA

Amadeus reported another quarterly loss as higher-priced international air traffic hasn’t recovered as quickly as domestic air traffic in the pandemic rebound. But executives at the Madrid-based travel technology firm struck an optimistic note when they reported earnings on Friday. June was the company’s best-performing month since the onset of the pandemic.

Given that Amadeus is the world’s biggest provider of booking services to travel agencies and a provider of other travel software solutions, it can serve as something of a proxy for how well the global travel sector is coping with the pandemic.

Amadeus saw monthly air booking growth rates throughout the first six months of the year compared with 2019 pre-pandemic levels gradually improve each month. In June, Amadeus saw bookings had declined 58.7 percent compared to 2019 levels, which was an improvement over the levels of decline in previous months.

North America has unsurprisingly been the best performing geography, followed by Central Europe, which includes Russia.

During the second quarter, the company reported an adjusted loss for the second quarter of about $28 million (€23.6 million) on approximately $742.6 million (€624.4 million) in revenue. The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization on continuing operations were about $172 million (€145 million).

Amadeus’s biggest revenue generator is its distribution service for airlines and agencies. In the second quarter, distribution revenue amounted to approximately $318 million (€267.6 million), a 66 percent contraction relative to the pre-pandemic second quarter of 2019. That represented a notable improvement over the revenue performance delivered in the first three months of the year.

Amadeus’ earnings are strongly tied to the number of reservations it handles, as the company essentially charges a commission for every reservation made on its platforms. About a fifth of its revenue comes from its IT hospitality business and non-air bookings.

Amadeus’s revenue fell partly because the booking volumes it processed in the second quarter were only 67.6 percent of the level of the comparable period in 2019. Yet another factor was that distribution revenue per booking diluted slightly compared with 2019 levels partly because of the higher weight of local bookings, driven by the faster recovery in domestic air traffic than in international air traffic. Short-haul domestic trips don’t generate as high a fee for the company as sales of international plane tickets do.

Amadeus addressed analyst questions about the company’s ongoing efforts to adopt NDC (New Distribution Capability), which has come to represent a set of more modern ways of selling airfares. The company said it had made moderate progress on NDC, but industry adoption will take years. It cited agreements signed with United Airlines, Qantas, Qatar Airways, LOT Polish Airlines, and Kenya Airways. It also signed during the quarter deals to offer NDC content to travel agencies including Tiket.com in South East Asia and Seera Group and Sharaf Travel in the Middle East.

“With time, we will not be talking about NDC any longer,” said Luis Maroto, president and CEO. “There will be new technology to help you merchandise your products.”

Source: Skift

Tourism industry players led by Cabinet Secretary Najib Balala have lamented the impact of Covid-19 travel restrictions imposed by foreign countries that are hindering international travels in Kenya.

Mr Balala said it’s unfortunate some foreign countries are discriminating against Africa on the travel restrictions.

“These restrictions are uncalled for. Previously, Africa and Kenya in particular have suffered from perceived insecurity. Travel advisories have been issued before against our countries,” he said.

Speaking during a webinar on the impact of Covid-19 on travel restrictions on African economies by the Royal African Society on July 15, Mr Balala lauded African nations for effectively dealing with the pandemic.

“Compared to many other African countries in the world, Africa and particularly Kenya has managed well. Look at our Covid-19 statistics, we have fewer deaths cases,” he noted.

The CS called for regional collaboration, coordination, and cooperation to promote domestic and regional tourism in East Africa.

Hotelier Mohamed Hersi also faulted foreign nations for imposing travel restrictions.

“We are still yet to get any good numbers of arrivals from the US, North America due to all the conditions placed on us. We are making progress, but we are losing out from the British tourists due to the red list from the UK government,” said Mr Hersi.

The latest data from the Tourism Research Institute (TRI) shows Kenya received 305, 635 international visitors between January to June this year.

Out of the 305, 635 international tourists, 96,003 were females and 209,632 males.

Source: Business Daily

As the rich world speeds ahead with vaccinations, developing countries – including those that did a good job at controlling the pandemic early on – look set to be hit with increasingly stringent travel restrictions that could affect their citizens for a long time.

The debate around the implications of vaccinated-related travel rules heated up as it was announced that the India-made AstraZeneca vaccine, Covishield – which is produced by India’s Serum Institute and distributed across much of Africa through the EU-supported Covax programme – has not been included in the EU Digital Green Pass programme. (Specific European countries have since agreed to recognise it, including Ireland.)

Africa has the slowest vaccination rate in the world. Just 18 million Africans are fully vaccinated on a continent of 1.3 billion people. But those in charge of procuring vaccines say rich countries have pushed their way to the front of the queue and taken control of production assets, denying the developing world a proper chance to get what is needed.

They are frustrated seeing politicians in wealthy countries talking about administering third doses to their citizens, rather than sharing what they have with the rest of the world.

“[There are] vaccine production centres across Europe. Not a single dose, not one vial has left a European factory for Africa,” charged Strive Masiyiwa, the African Union special envoy and Zimbabwean telecommunications billionaire tasked with leading efforts to procure Covid-19 vaccines, recently. “When we’ve gone to talk to their manufacturers, they tell us that they are completely maxed out, meeting the needs of Europe…They have vaccinated so many of their own people that they can now watch football without masks.”

“Now is the time for Europe to open up its production facilities so that we can buy vaccines,” he said.

Most African countries were quick to impose border controls and other restrictions in March 2020, greatly limiting the spread of the disease. To date, the UK has recorded almost the same number of deaths as the whole of Africa. However, the arrival of the Delta variant has caused a surge in cases. Over the past week, the continent recorded 6,273 deaths, a rise of 43 per cent on the 4,384 deaths of the previous week. Five countries – Namibia, South Africa, Tunisia, Uganda and Zambia – accounted for 83 per cent of new cases. Hospital admissions are increasing and some countries are facing shortages of oxygen and intensive care beds, while there are concerns about under-testing and unrecorded deaths.

One of the fastest increases has been in Uganda. The east African country of roughly 44 million people is back in a nationwide lockdown, while the WHO said the Delta variant was detected in 97 per cent of new cases. This week, Ugandan government minister Chris Baryomunsi told the Guardian newspaper that Uganda is unable to get further vaccinations, after giving shots to more than one million people.

“The problem has been the supply side,” he said. “We have the money but we simply can’t get the vaccine. This is a challenge of access and equity. We have to rely on the western world and the western world has focused on its population. The impression is that people there don’t care about Africans.”

In January John Nkengasong, the director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said he was surprised African countries were being put on European travel ban lists while countries with much greater numbers of cases, like the US and France, remained off them. “From a public health standpoint, what we should be doing is requiring that people travel with a negative Covid-19 test,” he said. “If an African is traveling to the UK and shows a negative Covid test, that person doesn’t cause a risk to you.”

But fears are growing that the continent could be facing years of travel restrictions and bans hindering travel to the West, which would affect everyone from students and business people to Africans accessing medical care. Last month, Nkengasong appealed to G7 leaders to be on the “right side of history”, saying the limited supply of vaccines for Africa will have serious economic as well as health consequences.

Kenyan author Nanjala Nyabola, who recently published the book Travelling While Black, which was inspired by travels to 70 countries, said she believes extra restrictions imposed on African travellers could last far longer than the pandemic.

“Most African countries will not hit 30 per cent [of people vaccinated] until 2023, and that means that we will not hit 70 per cent until 2025. So, what they’re effectively saying is that they’re going to ban African travellers from certain countries until 2025. And once that becomes established as practice, how many years will it take to undo that?”

She said it is important to ensure racist policymaking does not take over at a time like this.

“The UK has a much more out of control outbreak than most African countries, but we are on red lists, and we have to carry that scarlet letter, but it’s almost never likely going to happen in the other direction.”

Source: The Irish Times

Kenyans are traveling more to Doha (Qatar), Dar es Salaam, London, Johannesburg and Kampala this year a survey indicates, even as countries continue to impose travel bans and restrictions.

This is mainly for business and leisure, a comparative study by technology company–Uber, conducted between 2019 to 2021, shows.

The survey is showcasing top city trips and holiday destinations.

“In 2019, the East African capitals of Dar es Salaam and Kampala were among the top cities that Kenyans travelled to. This was followed by Johannesburg, London and Doha in the same year. In 2021, top destinations included Doha, Dar es Salaam, London, Johannesburg and Kampala,” the global firm’s report notes.

Beyond Africa, popular destinations among Kenyans in 2019 were Washington D.C, New Delhi, Dubai and Toronto, while in 2021 it was Washington D.C, Toronto, Birmingham and New York City.

“The uptake in travel is providing a much-needed lifeline to travel and hospitality industries locally and internationally as more people take trips for business and leisure,” says Brian Njao, Head of East Africa, Uber.

The firm was among the first to unveil ride-hailing services in Kenya.

According to Uber’s data, Lisbon (Portugal’s hilly, coastal capital city) ranked the most popular city across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) among Uber riders, claiming the top spot from London in 2019.

In addition, the United States ranked the most popular country among Uber riders in EMEA, while five European countries joined the top ten (Portugal, Spain, France, UK and Poland).

The report indicates London is popular with Kenyans despite UK’s decision to place Kenya on its ‘Red List’ this year, over the South African coronavirus variant.

The listing affected international visitors to Kenya between January and June where a paltry 16,264 British citizens visited the country, compared to 181,484 arrivals in 2019.

Kampala is popular for imports of shoes and clothing by Kenyan businesses, mainly stalls in Nairobi, hence the ranking among top visited cities.

Uganda is equally a top tourist market source for Kenya with a total of 31,418 Ugandans visiting Kenya in the year to June.

Tanzania’s commercial hub of Dar es Salaam is also a key business destination where Kenyan companies have invested heavily in tech and financial services.

The neighbouring country is a key tourist market source with at least 31,291 of its citizens visiting Kenya between January and June this year.

Tourism Research Institute (TRI) data shows Kenya recorded a total of 305,635 international arrivals during the period, with global travel restrictions affecting the numbers.

During the six months, the US topped with 49,178.

There is a high number of Kenyans traveling to Qatar and other Middle East countries for business and greener pastures, which includes domestic work.

Source: The Star