Overseas Situation Report Wednesday 2nd June 2021
By Mike Evans
“Try walking forward while looking over your shoulder and see how far you get. The same goes for life. Look forward!” – Martin Henderson
We start this report with the news that Peru has admitted to understating the number of deaths as a result of Covid-19 and we look at a roundup of stories that connect with the virus.
Peru on Monday dramatically increased its official Covid-19 death toll to 180,764, following a government review.
Peru has been among the hardest hit Latin American countries, with its hospitals overcrowded with patients and demand for oxygen outstripping availability. Experts had long warned that the true death toll was being undercounted in official statistics. The government said it will now update its death count, which stood at 69,342 as of Sunday, in part because of a lack of testing that made it difficult to confirm whether a person had died due to the virus or some other cause.
Health Minister, Oscar Ugarte, said the criteria for identifying the coronavirus as a cause of death were changed. Previously, only those who “had a positive diagnostic test” were considered to have died from the virus, but other criteria have since been incorporated. The new toll from Covid-19 includes deaths reported between March 2020 and May 22 of this year. Among Latin American countries, only Brazil and Mexico have reported higher death tolls from the disease.
Meanwhile In the Asia-Pacific region, Malaysia began a two-week national lockdown on Tuesday, with police checkpoints on road junctions around the capital Kuala Lumpur as authorities tackle a wave of Covid-19 infections that has hit record levels in recent weeks.
Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin, called it a “total lockdown,” though essential services are allowed and some factories can operate with a reduced workforce. The latest outbreak has been more severe, partly due to highly transmissible variants.
In South Africa – despite the Covid-19 pandemic, it appeared that many foreign tourists were still travelling to visit. This was revealed in Stats SA’s Travel and Migration report for March, which was released on Tuesday. It gave insight into traveller numbers to and from the country. The latest Travel and Migration Report showed that more than 635,000 travellers passed through South African ports of entry in March.
They comprised more than 214,000 South Africans and around 420,000 foreigners. Almost 2,700 Americans visited in March, while the country welcomed more than 2,000 Germans and over 1,700 from the UK, a country where only essential travel was allowed.
There were also significant travellers from France, India, China and the Netherlands, while most visitors from Africa were from Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Ethiopia. Almost 140,000 indicated that they were here on holiday, but some were visiting for business, study or medical treatment. Most tourists were from Europe, totalling almost 9,000 in March. It does rather make one think that these travellers may have exacerbated the increase in cases seen during this period.
Continuing on the travel theme, there are reports this week of concerns surrounding the Covid-19 vaccine certificates. A travel risk intelligence specialist has warned of long airport delays as travellers use paper documents to show their Covid status.
The paperwork can be faked so there could be lengthy queues while checks are carried out, said Adam Schrader, Operations Director at Riskline.
“Governments and travel authorities are now hastily rushing to introduce vaccination passports to meet the demand to open up travel and holidays,” he said.
“While digital vaccine passports are in development and testing, the absence of any universal standards means that many people around the world have already been issued with paper documentation for their vaccinations.
The unvaccinated who still want to travel will turn to counterfeit documents and fake vaccination passports which are already available on the dark web. Some violators may not be caught.”
He added: “Until all countries introduce digital vaccination records, security will be weak and be dependent on hard-pressed border and travel staff checking documents diligently. The queues will be lengthy.”
After being housebound for more than a year due to Covid-19 restrictions, many vaccinated Westerners are eager to travel again — and tour operators are only too happy to oblige.
Costa Cruises is among the companies booking trips through the Mediterranean this summer. While cruise ships are a common sight in the region, in the last year, they’ve also been put to a less glamorous 
use.
Italy, more than most countries in the region, has been struggling to deal with the thousands of migrants from Africa and the Middle East who risk their lives to cross the Mediterranean. Every week, hundreds are rescued at sea. The Italian public has become increasingly resistant to bringing them into the country, and the pandemic has only hardened that resolve.
In an attempt to save lives while containing the spread of Covid-19, in 2020 the Italian government chartered nine cruise ships. Staffed by the Italian Red Cross, they are intended to quarantine migrants rescued at sea, in order to keep them from bringing Covid-19 ashore. The ships have become giant, floating holding pens. On any given day last fall and winter, several hundred migrants and a few dozen Red Cross staff were on board La Suprema. The passengers were confined to designated floors and areas, which were cordoned off with barriers of clear-plastic sheets that had been taped across doorways, to lessen the potential flow of Covid-contaminated air. The ship felt less like a vacation destination than a nursing home — humid with worried people waiting and smelling of boiled broccoli and carrots. The ship’s gold-coloured railings served as clothes lines. The video game arcade became a medical storage closet, with boxes of latex gloves, hand sanitizer and toilet paper stacked between the Galaga and Pac-Man machines.
Most of the time, they were anchored about one and a half kilometres from shore, off the coast of Sicily. The liner was circled at all times by two patrol boats from Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, which polices immigration and financial crimes.
Several times a day, Red Cross staff led the migrants out of their cramped hallways to the ship’s upper deck, where they were allowed half-hour recesses.
The migrants spent most of their time sitting on the floor in the hallways outside their cabins, huddled around their cell phones. The cabins typically held two or three people, the majority of them men between 15 and 25 years old, from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Somalia, Bangladesh or Eritrea.
It’s hard to miss the irony in using cruise ships to forestall the spread of the coronavirus. One of the first serious Covid-19 outbreaks outside China was on the Diamond Princess, a British cruise ship that had stopped in the port of Yokohama, Japan, in early February 2020. Roughly one-fifth of the passengers tested positive; about a dozen people ultimately died. Mass outbreaks followed on other ships.
Until the next time, Stay Safe.
Total Cases Worldwide – 171,625,780
Total Deaths Worldwide – 3,568,091
Total Recovered Worldwide – 153,959,634
Total Active Cases Worldwide – 14,098,055 (8.2% of the total cases)
Total Closed Cases Worldwide – 157,527.725
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