Canada will require incoming international air passengers to test negative before boarding, and other news from around the world

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Sat, 2021-01-02 19:06 — mike kraft

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/01/02/world/covid-19-coronavirus#canada-will-require-incoming-international-air-passengers-to-test-negative-before-boarding-and-other-news-from-around-the-world

Canada will require passengers seeking to board international flights into the country to show their airline proof of a negative coronavirus test, in addition to entering an already existing, mandatory 14-day quarantine on arrival.

The new rule, which the government announced on Thursday, will take effect on Jan. 7 and will require proof of a negative PCR test taken in the previous 72 hours. PCR tests must be sent to a lab and can take several days to process, unlike the rapid antigen test, which gives a result in about 30 minutes.

The country remains closed to most foreign nationals entering for nonessential purposes, but it is tightening its already strict entry protocols as parts of the country, including Ontario, Quebec and Alberta, grapple with an alarming increase in virus cases and deaths.

Vietnam has reported a case of the variant first discovered in Britain, making it the 34th country to identify the variant within its borders. The health ministry said the case was identified in a 44-year-old woman who had returned to Vietnam from Britain, Reuters reported. She quarantined upon arrival in Vietnam and tested positive on Dec. 24.
Facing broad criticism, the government of the Netherlands on Saturday said it would speed up its lagging vaccination process and provide the first shots to frontline health care workers earlier than its planned start of next Friday. The new start date is expected to be announced on Monday. Most European nations started vaccinations last week. Despite being in lockdown since Dec. 14, the country’s infection rate has only recently gone down, and only slightly, leaving it still among the highest in Europe, with an average of 51 cases per 100,000 people over the past two weeks.
Brazil’s pandemic death toll — the world’s second-highest — is approaching 200,000, as of Saturday. Only the United States has recorded more deaths, with nearly 350,000. Brazil has reported around 7.6 million cases....
South Korea said on Saturday that it would extend until Jan. 17 restrictions in and around Seoul that had shuttered schools, gyms, karaoke rooms, bars and other high-risk facilities. Those restrictions are at the second-highest level of a five-tier system, in a country whose pandemic response was once held up as a model. The government said on Saturday that it would expand one of the restrictions — a ban on gatherings of more than four people — from Seoul to the entire country.
Zimbabwe will shutter nonessential businesses for a month and extend a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, its information secretary, Nick Mangwana, said on Saturday. The measures also include restrictions on travel between cities and a 30-day ban on gatherings such as weddings and church services. ..
In the northern Chinese city of Shenyang, which reported seven cases on Friday, officials ramped up restrictions on Saturday by closing public spaces, limiting some residents from leaving their home district and ordering nonessential workers in some areas to stay home, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.