Summer holidays: Testing, quarantine and 'vacci-cations'
Travel journalists explain what some of the issues might be if you are thinking of going abroad.
Covid vaccines are less effective against the variant of the virus identified in India, research has shown. But they would still prevent very seriously illness, University of Cambridge microbiologist Prof Ravindra Gupta said. He told BBC World News: “The virus can potentially infect people who have already been vaccinated, albeit with reduced severity – so…
A narrative of Indian exceptionalism led people to believe they were more immune to Covid-19, resulting in them taking fewer precautions and allowing the virus to spread rapidly in the country, the director of the Centre for Disease Dynamics, Economics and Policy has said. The country avoided a crisis last year due to a lockdown…
The single-shot Johnson & Johnson coronavirus vaccine should get its final approval in the United States later on Friday. If approved the US would be the first country in the world to do so. Infectious disease expert and adviser to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Helen Talbot, told BBC World News that…
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has not rejected coronavirus lockdowns but has left it to individual states to impose measures from curfews to full lockdowns, the national spokesperson for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Shaina Nana Chudasama, has said. “Each state is given the choice to decide whether they want to impose a curfew,…
The Taliban say they will not extend the deadline for Western forces to leave Afghanistan. A spokesman, Suhail Shaheen, told the BBC’s Yalda Hakim that the 31 August was a red line and that any extension would be a “clear violation” of the Doha agreement between the United States and the Taliban. He said that…
The ongoing unrest in Myanmar is in danger of spiralling into an “all-out civil war”, a human rights group has warned. Hundreds of people, including children, have been killed since the military seized power in February. The coup triggered mass protests that have been met with a violent response from the authorities. “The military regime…