West eyes normalcy as Moscow orders mandatory jabs

PARIS: The EU on Wednesday agreed to lift coronavirus restrictions for US travellers as Western countries edged back towards pre-Covid life, but a mandatory vaccine order in Russian capital Moscow offered a stark reminder that the global Covid-19 pandemic is far from over.

The United States was among eight countries and territories added to a European Union white list, exempting them from the Covid-19 travel ban ahead of the busy summer holiday season critical to the economies of many member nations.

EU states can still choose to require travellers from these areas to undergo Covid-19 testing or to observe periods in quarantine, but once the new list is approved the recommendation is that they should be exempted from a blanket travel ban that the bloc imposed in March 2020.

The other countries and regions added to the white list on Wednesday were Albania, North Macedonia, Serbia, Lebanon, Taiwan, Macau and Hong Kong, officials and diplomats said.

Europe’s move came a day after Covid restrictions were dropped on the US’ east and west coasts, with New York City and the state of California lifting nearly all curbs.

But the good news was overshadowed as the national Covid-19 death toll in the US topped 600,000 — the largest in the world by far, ahead of hard-hit Brazil and India.

US progress against Covid was echoed in Asia where India, which saw overwhelmed health services and record infections and deaths in April and May, reopened its famed Taj Mahal monument on Wednesday.

Cases have declined in recent weeks, with several major cities including New Delhi and Mumbai easing many restrictions.

But in a stark reminder that the global pandemic that has killed more than 3.8 million people worldwide was far from over, Moscow ordered mandatory vaccinations, with mayor Sergei Sobyanin warning “the coronavirus situation continues to unfold dramatically”.

“We simply must do everything to carry out mass vaccinations in the shortest possible time and stop this terrible disease, stop the deaths of thousands of people,” Sobyanin wrote in a blog post as he ordered jabs for Muscovites working in the service industry.

The announcement came as Russia’s second city of Saint Petersburg hosts matches in the Euro 2020 football tournament, with thousands of foreign visitors expected to fly in. Japan, which next week hosts the 2020 Olympics delayed a year by the pandemic, said on Wednesday that it planned to set a cap of 10,000 fans at sports events ahead of the games.

The proposed measure would come into force after a Covid-19 state of emergency in Tokyo and other parts of the country ends on June 20, and would last until the end of August, said Yasutoshi Nishimura, the minister in charge of virus measures.

Worldwide, the novel coronavirus, which emerged in China in late 2019, has killed at least 3,824,885 people, according to a tally from official sources compiled by AFP.

The World Health Organisation estimates that the pandemic’s overall toll could be two to three times higher than official figures, due to the excess mortality that is directly and indirectly linked to Covid-19.