Travel Vaccine News

The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) is preparing to launch important initiatives to protect the Region’s tourism sector and safeguard the health and safety of residents and visitors.
The Caribbean Travelers Health Assurance stamp for Healthier Safer Tourism (HST) is a measurable and verifiable recognition award for tourism entities and destinations that are implementing the recommended proactive COVID-19  health monitoring and safety measures.

The cities of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, have shared cultural traditions and history along the Rio Grande River for hundreds of years.
And now, the sister cities share a major problem with rising COVID-19 cases, reported Erika Castillo with KFox14 news.

The Public Health Agency of Canada based in Ottawa announced as part of Canada’s efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19, all travelers will soon be required to provide specific information in digital format upon and after entry into Canada.
This new requirement issued on November 2, 2020, includes providing a quarantine plan, personal contact, and travel information to the Government of Canada.

At the main bus terminus in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, international travelers are tempted with offers of counterfeit travel vaccination certificates. Counterfeit travel vaccination certificates can greatly jeopardize disease control, stated the leaders of the World Health Organization (WHO) African region in a press statement on October 30, 2020.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a Framework for Conditional Sailing Order that introduces a phased approach for the safe and responsible resumption of passenger cruises.
The Order issued on October 30, 2020, establishes a framework of actionable items for the cruise line industry to follow so they can resume passenger operations with an emphasis on preventing the further spread of COVID-19 on cruise ships and from cruise ships into communities, and to protect public health and safety. 

Hawaii’s Governor David Ige announced that starting November 6, 2020, travelers from Japan may bypass the State of Hawaiʻi’s mandatory 14-day quarantine if they take a COVID-19 test from a trusted testing partner in Japan.
However, the test must be taken no earlier than 72-hours prior to departure and the test results must be negative.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) typically posts travel health notices for countries and other international destinations, not transportation, such as cruise ships.
However, because of the unprecedented nature of the novel SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic, and the increased risk of virus transmission on cruise ships, the U.S. government is advising U.S. travelers to defer all cruise travel.

Canada's public safety minister Bill Blair Tweeted "We are extending non-essential travel restrictions with the United States until November 21, 2020. Our decisions will continue to be based on the best public health advice available to keep Canadians safe."
This Tweet on October 19, 2020, was responded to by Chad Wolf, the acting secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who confirmed Mr. Blair’s news.

Since COVID-19 pandemic lockdown measures considerably curtail people's freedom, would ‘immunity passports’ offer more freedoms to international travelers?
‘If we have the technology to decide who is not a risk, we should use it,’ stated researchers in a study published by The Lancet on October 16, 2020.
The specific scenarios in which immunity passports can be used will depend on the nature of the immunity generated. 

Health officials in Spain have reported outbreaks of West Nile virus disease in Sevilla, Cádiz, Huelva provinces, and Badajoz province reported the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In response, the CDC issued a new Level 1 Travel Alert on October 13, 2020, which states: ‘All travelers are at risk and those over 50 years of age are at the highest risk for severe disease from West Nile virus (WNV)'.