Chinese officials claimed on Thursday that coronavirus fatalities have dropped by almost 80 percent since the beginning of January, indicating the vast wave of infections sweeping the country is quickly coming to an end.
The dishonest Chinese government claims fewer than two dozen people have died nationwide during the massive coronavirus outbreak sweeping the country, but the true number is believed to be in the thousands and could be heading into the millions.
The Chinese Communist Party’s effort to blame its titanic coronavirus disaster on its own people, because they foolishly challenged the wisdom of dictator Xi Jinping’s endless lockdowns, apparently is not going well.
Chinese state media over the weekend highlighted huge New Year’s Eve celebrations across the country, with one of the biggest at Shougang Park in the capital of Beijing – even though China claims to be experiencing a ravaging national outbreak of the Wuhan coronavirus.
The government of Morocco on Sunday became the first country to ban travelers from China outright as a massive wave of Chinese coronavirus sweeps across that country.
The Beijing-controlled government of Hong Kong on Thursday asked Japan to retract its restrictions on incoming flights from China, while France and Australia separately announced they saw no reason to impose special restrictions on Chinese travelers.
Chinese flight cancellations, already vexing travelers in a few coronavirus hot spots like the city of Guangzhou, expanded greatly throughout the week. On Wednesday, the state-run Global Times said some airports are seeing 98 percent flight cancellation rates, while massive Guangzhou was up to 89 percent canceled.
A commission assembled by the renowned British medical journal Lancet to examine worldwide responses to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic issued a scathing report on Wednesday, blasting governments around the globe for exposing themselves as “untrustworthy and ineffective.”
Chinese state media on Tuesday declared victory over the coronavirus outbreak in Shenzhen, the tech hub known as “China’s Silicon Valley.” The city was subjected to severe lockdown measures over the past week, including an order that forced employees to live in their factories so the production lines could keep running.
Canada’s Transportation Minister, Omar Alghabra, confirmed reports that a charter plane in the city of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories has been grounded after carrying two Russian nationals. Minister Alghabra wrote about the matter on Twitter on Thursday, saying: “A charter aircraft
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced on Thursday that her country would begin reopening its borders at the end of February, capping an embarrassing week in which a pregnant Kiwi journalist stranded outside the country turned to the Taliban for assistance.
French media have claimed that a leaked government email has shown that Algeria is no longer accepting any forced deportations from France.
With the Beijing Winter Olympics only a few weeks away, and a coronavirus wave sweeping across China, many residents of Beijing have reportedly decided to flee the city while they still can, taking the very same Lunar New Year holiday trips to visit family that Chinese officials have been discouraging.
The Chinese government on Sunday ordered rural migrant workers in Shaanxi province not to make their traditional annual visits to family during the Lunar New Year and Spring Festival holidays. The restrictions were part of a growing atmosphere of panic around the coronavirus outbreak in Shaanxi’s capital of Xi’an, even as the Chinese Communist regime insists a mere handful of cases have been detected.
VIENNA (AP) – Germany is tightening travel restrictions for people coming from Britain in response to the rapid spread of the omicron variant there.
China announced over the weekend that it would ban local officials and staffers in Zhangjiakou, the suburb of Beijing scheduled to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, from leaving the area without “approval.”
The director-general of the World Health Organization (W.H.O.), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, discouraged countries on Tuesday from enacting travel bans on African countries that had contributed to identifying the Omicron variant of Chinese coronavirus, which the U.N. agency branded a “variant of concern” last week.
South African Health Minister Joe Phaahla said on Monday there is “absolutely no need to panic” over the Omicron variant of the Wuhan coronavirus.
More African leaders on Monday joined South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera in condemning travel bans against their nations – imposed hurriedly by U.S. President Joe Biden and other Western and Asian governments after the discovery of the Omicron coronavirus variant – as unreasonable actions driven by virus panic and racist animosity towards Africans.
TOKYO (AP) – Portuguese health authorities said Monday they have identified 13 cases of omicron, the new coronavirus variant believed to be more contagious, among team members of a professional soccer club.
The United States is finally reopening to British travellers after almost two years of heavy restrictions — but for the most part they must be double-vaccinated.
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) – Sydney will end hotel quarantine for vaccinated passengers when scheduled international flights restart in Australia within two weeks, officials said on Friday, while maintaining some restrictions on foreigners entering the country.
California’s Democrats have now banned state-funded travel to so many states in protest at their legislation on social issues that the bans now cover one-third of the United States by population, after a new ban on Ohio was introduced last month.
A frustrated Boris Johnson plans to press Joe Biden over his failure to act on a pledge to ease travel restrictions on British citizens, months after Britain did the same for American citizens.
The European Union plans to recommend that its 27 nations reinstate restrictions on tourists from the U.S. because of rising coronavirus infection levels there, EU diplomats said Monday.
Sweden has decided to grant exemptions to the county’s Wuhan coronavirus travel ban for eSports “athletes” entering the country from outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).
PARIS (AP) – France will allow international travellers who have had AstraZeneca’s Indian-manufactured vaccine into the country starting Sunday.
Over 100 planes from India have landed in Britain following the country being placed on the UK’s list of travel prohibited countries over concerns about the Indian variant of the coronavirus.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s borders policies have allowed at least 20,000 travellers from India to enter the country despite concerns over the novel variant of the coronavirus there.
(AFP) — People arriving in Australia from coronavirus-ravaged India could face five years jail as the country strengthens an earlier travel ban, the government announced Saturday, in a bid to prevent the outbreak from spreading to its shores.
House Democrats passed a plan on Wednesday that would make it increasingly difficult for any president to impose a travel ban to protect American citizens and would allow individuals to sue when a president imposes such a ban.
Authorities are concerned by the high numbers of infections from migrants returning to Norway after travelling to their home countries on holiday, with as many as one in four arriving aircraft carrying passengers infected with the Wuhan virus.
Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked on Thursday if President Joe Biden should set a better example about personal travel during the pandemic, as he plans to fly to Wilmington, Delaware for the weekend again.
The Member of Parliament for the Port of Dover has called for illegal migrants to be put on the same quarantine “red list” as legitimate travellers, including British citizens, entering the United Kingdom from high-risk countries.
Former Labour prime minister Tony Blair is pushing Boris Johnson to use British leadership of the G7 to create a global vaccine passport.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark has temporarily suspended all flights from the United Arab Emirates for five days after suspicion arose that the coronavirus tests that can be obtained before leaving Dubai are not reliable, authorities announced Friday.
The Swedish municipality of Strömstad has seen a 700 per cent rise in unemployment due to travel restrictions implemented after the start of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.
President Trump warned that “a nation without borders is not a nation” as he is extended his “sincere condolences” to France over the “vicious, vicious Islamic terrorist attack” which saw an educator publicly beheaded for showing images of the Islamic prophet during lessons on freedom of expression.
BERLIN (AP) — Traffic was backed up for as much as 12 hours on Austria’s southern border after new coronavirus safety measures were imposed on all travellers entering the country, authorities said Sunday.
(AFP) — New Zealand plans to open a virus-free “travel bubble” with the tiny Pacific realm of the Cook Islands before year’s end, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Monday, while expressing caution about a similar arrangement with Australia.
