Tag Archives: pandemic

Hong Kong cuts hotel quarantine to 3 days as city’s image dives | Coronavirus pandemic News

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Announcement comes amid mounting frustration with worldwide monetary centre’s isolation as world lives with COVID.

Hong Kong will scale back resort quarantine from seven days to a few days as companies and residents within the worldwide monetary hub develop more and more pissed off with one of many world’s most draconian border regimes.

Underneath the eased measures, travellers can be required to quarantine for 3 days in a resort as an alternative of seven, after which they are going to be topic to 4 days of “house medical surveillance”.

In the course of the surveillance interval, arrivals is not going to be allowed to enter venues similar to bars and eating places which were required to undertake a brand new two-colour well being code just like that utilized in mainland China.

The eased measures will take impact from Friday.

Lengthy branded as “Asia’s World Metropolis”, Hong Kong has become some of the remoted metropolises on earth after two and a half years of strict border controls designed to align with mainland China.

The pandemic insurance policies, along with a sweeping crackdown on dissent that has severely curtailed rights and freedoms within the former British colony, have prompted an exodus of residents and warnings of mind drain within the semi-autonomous Chinese language territory.

More than 120,000 people left in 2020 and 2021, with tens of 1000’s extra anticipated to observe this yr.

In a survey performed by the American Chamber of Commerce of Hong Kong final yr, greater than 40 % of expatriate residents mentioned they have been planning to depart or contemplating it.

Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis in Hong Kong, mentioned that whereas constructive, the relief of quarantine nonetheless left town trailing the remainder of the world.

“The optimistic situation is Hong Kong’s air passengers can attain 8 % of the pre-pandemic stage in 2022, however it’s not sufficient,” Ng informed Al Jazeera.

“Hong Kong’s management wants to maneuver past COVID for the better good of the economic system and introducing further hurdles doesn’t assist, such because the well being code.”

Canada sees surge in hate crimes during pandemic, new data shows | Racism News

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New statistics immediate calls by advocates for the federal government in Ottawa to move anti-racism regulation.

Canada has skilled a pointy rise in hate crimes focusing on faith, sexual orientation and race for the reason that begin of the COVID-19 pandemic, in response to knowledge launched this week by Statistic Canada.

Canada, which prides itself as a various and welcoming nation for immigrants and refugees, has witnessed a 72 % bounce in its hate crime price between 2019 and 2021, stated Statistics Canada.

This enhance was partly as a result of pandemic, which uncovered and exacerbated security and discrimination points. Chinese language Canadians reported elevated discrimination. Wuhan, China was the epicentre of the virus. The World Well being Group stated in June that its newest investigation into the origins of COVID-19 was inconclusive, largely as a result of knowledge from China is lacking.

In 2021, hate-motivated crimes focusing on faith jumped 67 %, these focusing on sexual orientation climbed 64 % and people focusing on race or ethnicity rose 6 %.

That has prompted minority teams to urge the government to move an anti-racism regulation.

“We merely can’t afford additional delay in actions to cease anti-Asian hate and racism,” Amy Go, the president of the Chinese language Canadian Nationwide Council for Social Justice, instructed the Reuters information company.

The council has requested the federal authorities to move an Anti-Racism Act to gather particular details about the culprits, the place the crime takes place and the circumstances underneath which it happens to carry these accountable accountable.

Go stated the federal government is reviewing the request. The Canadian authorities didn’t instantly reply to a request by Reuters for remark.

Migration is an important development engine for the Canadian economic system, with immigrant staff accounting for 84 % of complete labour power development within the 2010s, in response to Statistics Canada.

Canada welcomed a report 401,000 new everlasting residents in 2021, and Ottawa has set an bold goal of 432,000 newcomers this yr.

A number of incidents targeting Asians have put Manan Doshi, a global pupil who lately got here to Canada, doubtful about remaining within the nation.

Doshi stated his household requested him to return to India after he witnessed some life-threatening incidents at Toronto subway stations that scared him.

Mohammed Hashim, govt director of Canadian Race Relations Basis, has really useful the federal authorities make investments $15 million Canadian {dollars} ($11.6m) to assist hate crime victims.

“That is unacceptable as a result of hate can ceaselessly harm peoples’ means to take part in society,” Hashim stated.

The brand new statistics documented a 71 percent surge in hate crimes in opposition to Muslims in 2021 in contrast with 2020, throughout which there have been 144 incidents.

“This yr, there was a dramatic spike of anti-Muslim hate, as per the Stats Canada numbers,” The Nationwide Council of Canadian Muslims stated in a tweet earlier this week.

“We misplaced Canadian Muslims to hate in 2021. These numbers additionally don’t inform the entire story – we all know that the numbers of hate crimes vastly exceed what present up in hate crime stats.”

Muslims in Canada have been focused by main hate assaults lately, together with a mass taking pictures that claimed six worshippers at a mosque in Quebec Metropolis in 2017. Final yr, an assailant ran over a Muslim household along with his truck in London, Ontario, killing 4 individuals in what police described as an Islamophobic assault.

New Zealand fully reopens borders, marking end of COVID controls | Coronavirus pandemic

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The South Pacific nation started easing its robust border regime in February.

New Zealand has absolutely reopened to worldwide guests, lifting the final remnants of one of many hardest border regimes launched through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nation started reopening its borders in February with the lifting of restrictions on New Zealand residents, adopted in Might by the return of vacationers from greater than 50 international locations together with the USA, Canada and the UK.

The ultimate border restrictions ended at midnight on Sunday with vacationers from non-visa waiver international locations, worldwide college students, and cruise ships allowed to enter the nation.

Most guests will nonetheless must be vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19 and take two exams after arriving, however is not going to must quarantine.

“It’s been a staged and cautious course of on our half since February as we, alongside the remainder of the world, proceed to handle a really dwell world pandemic, whereas protecting our individuals protected,” New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern mentioned throughout a speech on the China Enterprise Summit in Auckland on Monday.

New Zealand principally stored COVID-19 overseas through the pandemic till the arrival of the extremely infectious Omicron variant in December rendered its robust border controls largely moot.

Whereas the South Pacific nation at one level boasted one of many lowest dying tolls on earth, its isolation decimated industries such as tourism and left 1000’s of New Zealanders stranded overseas.

Earlier than the pandemic, tourism and worldwide training have been New Zealand’s largest and fourth-largest exports, respectively, with the previous using greater than 225,000 individuals.

Hospitalisation rates double as COVID cases triple across Europe | Coronavirus pandemic News

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The World Well being Group warns the pandemic shouldn’t be over, as European nations largely abandon coronavirus restrictions.

The World Well being Group (WHO) says coronavirus instances have tripled throughout Europe previously six weeks, accounting for practically half of all infections globally.

Tremendous-infectious family members of the Omicron variant have been driving the brand new wave of illness throughout the continent, with repeated infections probably resulting in lengthy COVID.

Though intensive care admissions have remained low, the United Nations’ well being company mentioned on Tuesday hospitalisation charges had doubled.

“With rising instances, we’re additionally seeing an increase in hospitalisations, that are solely set to extend additional within the autumn and winter months,” Hans Kluge, WHO’s Europe director, mentioned in an announcement.

“This forecast presents an enormous problem to the well being workforce in nation after nation, already below huge stress coping with unrelenting crises since 2020,” he added.

The 53 nations within the company’s European area, which stretches to Central Asia, reported practically three million new coronavirus infections final week, with the virus killing about 3,000 individuals each week.

Globally, COVID-19 instances have increased for the past five weeks, at the same time as nations scaled again on testing.

Earlier this week, editors of two British medical journals mentioned the nation’s Nationwide Well being Service had by no means earlier than had so many elements of the system so near collapsing.

Kamran Abbasi of the BMJ and Alastair McLellan of the Well being Service Journal wrote in a joint editorial that the UK authorities was failing to handle persistent issues worsened by COVID-19, together with ambulances lining up outdoors hospitals too overloaded to simply accept new sufferers.

They lambasted the federal government’s insistence that vaccines have damaged the hyperlink between infections and hospitalisations, regardless of proof pointing to the truth that vaccines dramatically scale back the probabilities of extreme illness and dying however don’t make a big dent on transmission.

“The federal government should cease gaslighting the general public and be sincere concerning the risk the pandemic nonetheless poses to them and the Nationwide Well being Service,” the editors wrote.

In a top level view of its COVID-19 fall technique printed on Tuesday, WHO known as for a second vaccine booster dose for anybody age 5 and above with weak immune methods, selling mask-wearing indoors and on public transport, and higher air flow in faculties, workplaces and different locations.

Kluge urged individuals to make their very own choices, even in nations the place authorities have largely deserted coronavirus restrictions.

“We’re all conscious of the instruments we’ve to maintain ourselves protected, assess our stage of danger and take the required steps to guard others if we get contaminated,” he mentioned. “Simply because a masks isn’t mandated doesn’t imply it’s prohibited.”

‘Nowhere close to over’

Earlier this month, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned the coronavirus pandemic was “nowhere close to over” and that the brand new waves all over the world indicated that the virus is “operating freely”.

“Because the virus pushes at us, we should push again,” Tedros mentioned. “We’re in a a lot better place than originally of the pandemic.”

Nonetheless, the efficient instruments that forestall infections shouldn’t be taken with no consideration, he added.

The WHO’s emergency committee on the pandemic has repeatedly careworn the necessity to scale back transmission of the virus because the trajectory of virus evolution and the traits of rising variants stay “unsure and unpredictable”.

China’s economy grows at slowest pace since start of pandemic | Business and Economy

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Second quarter growth of 0.4 p.c is the weakest efficiency because the preliminary coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan.

China’s financial system grew on the slowest tempo because the begin of the COVID-19 pandemic within the second quarter, highlighting the punishing financial toll of Beijing’s stringent “dynamic zero COVID” technique.

The world’s second-largest financial system expanded simply 0.4 p.c year-on-year between April and June, as lockdowns throughout the nation stifled industrial manufacturing and shopper spending.

The outcome was nicely under market expectations and the worst efficiency because the first quarter of 2020, when the financial system shrank 6.9 p.c after authorities imposed the primary COVID-related lockdowns within the metropolis of Wuhan.

“The information was weaker than anticipated, with most analysts anticipating round 1 p.c,” Carlos Casanova, senior economist for Asia at UBP in Hong Kong, advised Al Jazeera.

“We have been under consensus, as we anticipated the decline in China’s housing sector to tug on mixture demand, lowering the chance of a sharper rebound in consumption in June.”

Casanova mentioned he anticipated progress in 2022 to stay under 4 p.c.

Main cities, together with the business capital Shanghai, have been put into lockdown in March and April, as a part of a “zero COVID” coverage that seeks to remove the virus at nearly any value.

Whereas officers have since lifted lots of the harshest curbs, new restrictions affecting hundreds of thousands of individuals have been launched in latest weeks in Xian, Lanzhou, Haikou, Macau, and Anhui province.

Regardless of the mounting financial and social toll, Chinese language President Xi Jingping has promised to maintain the country’s zero-tolerance approach, stressing the necessity to “put folks and life on the forefront”.

China has set an financial progress goal of about 5.5 p.c for 2022, that economists extensively imagine it’s unlikely to succeed in.