Travel News

by  Francesca Syz

Last week, Richard Branson became the first billionaire to successfully blast off to the edge of space aboard his suborbital spacecraft, VSS Unity, along with two pilots and three other crew members.

The first test flight with a full crew in the cabin, it reached an altitude of 53.3 miles after being released by its mothership, before gliding smoothly back down to a runway at Spaceport America.

“I have dreamt about this moment since I was a child, but nothing could have prepared me for the view of the Earth from space,” said Branson on touching down. “We are at the vanguard of a new space age. Our mission is to make space more accessible to all and I can’t wait to share this experience with aspiring astronauts around the world.”

While the $250,000 price tag per person for the flights that will follow does not shout accessible to me (even with the spacesuit thrown in), this successful mission is a landmark moment for the commercial space industry and means civilian space flight could start as early as next spring, which is a pretty big deal.

This week it was the turn of Jeff Bezos, the world’s richest man, who travelled 62 miles up aboard his company Blue Origin’s reusable New Shepard rocket, along with his younger brother Mark and two people who have become the youngest and oldest to travel into space: the first paying customer, a Dutch 18-year-old called Oliver Daemen, and 82-year-old aerospace pioneer Wally Funk.

But where’s Elon Musk? Don’t worry, he’s doing something even more ambitious in September with his pioneering rocket launch company SpaceX, by joining an all-civilian crew using a Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft for a several-day orbital mission aboard its Crew Dragon capsule.

Now that sending ‘ordinary’ people into space has become a reality, what’s next? This lot have all come up with some pretty interesting ideas. Bezos, for instance, has said his goal is to move all heavy industry off Earth into a new settlement on Mars, so that Earth can become one giant national park.

Musk has long talked of developing point-to-point space travel between two terrestrial locations using SpaceX’s Starship rocket. This would mean flying paying customers from, say, New York to Shanghai – a flight that would normally take about 16 hours – in just 40 minutes.

“If you’re building this thing to go to the moon and Mars, why not go to other places on earth as well?” said Musk, who has spoken of sending a million people to Mars by 2050 by launching building a fleet of 1000 Starship rockets, each of which would costs $62 million to build, at a space industry conference in 2017.

Musk was not the first to consider it, with previous detailed reports by US Department for Transportation and the International Space University of Strasbourg noting it could cut transport time to a third of what the supersonic Concorde had achieved but also that there would be many, many hurdles to be got over before it could work.

A report by investment banking company UBS predicted this could become reality by the late 2020s, although this timeline seems unlikely, given the safety certification process alone can take years.

The report calculated there are 800 routes around the world of ten hours or more, servicing over 150 million passengers, so claimed that capturing even a small percentage of that market – and given the growing number of both HNWIs and UHNWIs around the world, there would be takers – is an important material revenue opportunity.

However, the risk of explosions, the physical impact of leaving and re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere for those on board, the environmental impact of burning that much fuel, the infrastructure needed on the ground and local transportation are just some of the issues involved.

According to the UBS report, the average cost of a long-haul flight is about $2,500. In order to be financially viable, a point-to-point flight would have to cost about $12,000 per person, which is what it cost to fly Concorde. However, they would have to convince customers that it was safe, physically accessible and easy enough to use on a regular basis, as even among the ultra-rich, the ‘go once to say you’ve been’ market is not sustainable in the long term.

Branson has also been looking at additional ways to monetise space tourism and part of Virgin Galactic’s growth strategy, as mentioned in the company’s first earnings report last year, is the development of “high speed global mobility vehicles that drastically reduce travel time from point to point,” with a similar example of Los Angeles to Tokyo taking two hours.

They recently announced the launch of the development of Mach 3 Aircraft, a cutting-edge high-speed aircraft collaboration with Rolls-Royce, with a focus on environmental sustainability (they will be working towards use of state-of-the-art sustainable aviation fuel), customer comfort and very high speeds.

But Branson, Bezos and Musk aren’t the only ones who mean business in 2021.

On October 5, a Russian Soyuz rocket will launch the Soyuz MS-19 crew capsule to the International Space Station with Russian cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov and two space tourists: Russian film director Klim Shipenko and a (as yet un-named) Russian actress, who plans to film a movie while spending one week in space.

Then on October 31, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is scheduled to lift off from the Guiana Space CEnter in Kouru, French Guiana and on December 8, a Russian Soyuz rocket will launch the Soyuz MS-20 crew capsule to the International Space Station with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa and video producer Yozo Hirano.

Space enthusiasts who aren’t lucky enough to be joining any of these crews should consider looking out for one of the many meteor showers due to take place in the second half of the year, including the annual Perseids Bright Meteor Shower, when the earth ploughs into debris left behind from Comet Swift-Tuttle, which last passed close to earth in 1992.

According to Space.com, while the comet poses no threat to the planet in the foreseeable future, its nucleus of six miles in diameter is about the same size as the one that crashed into the earth about 66 million years ago and killed the dinosaurs.

It should peak visibly in the UK the nights of 12 and 13 August and offer many bright fast meteors with trains. Alternatively, there’s the annual Haley’s Comet-associated Orionid meteor shower will also peak on 21 October, the Leonids the nights of 17 and 18 November and Gemenids the night of 14 December. December 4 will be the only total solar eclipse of the year and the last one until 2023, but you’ll have to go to Antarctica to see it.

So where does that leave commercial point-to-point space flight? According to Scott Pace, Executive Secretary of the National Space Council, we should all be holding our horses.

“I see us working right now on trying to get the suborbital market up and running and stabilised,” said Pace. “I think people look forward to the possibility of point-to-point passenger and cargo travel, but right now just getting routine suborbital access to space is where the action is.”

Britain and France are in talks to roll out a “wallet” travel app to ensure holidaymakers have all the necessary Covid documentation before heading to the airport.

Grant Shapps, the Transport Secretary, met his French counterpart Jean-Baptiste Djebbari in Folkestone on Wednesday to discuss using an app developed by the owner of the Channel Tunnel to avoid chaos at the border.

Results of Covid testing, and proof of vaccination or herd immunity, are all stored alongside other information required for customers to travel such as passport details.

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The app warns customers before they set off on holiday if they have not got all the required information. The passenger “wallet” was offered to Eurotunnel customers two weeks ago.

The technology was adapted from a similar system offered to hauliers to ensure they had the necessary sign-offs to cross the border after Britain left the EU earlier this year.

Yann Leriche, chief executive of Getlink, the owner of the Channel Tunnel, said: “It's the most advanced product for people crossing the border.”

Both ministers said the technology is “the most advanced even compared to airlines”, Mr Leriche added. “And so they wanted to understand what are the lessons learned and how they can support us to further improve the product.”

Meanwhile, Mr Leriche said that the Channel Tunnel would shift workers from France to the UK to manage potential staff shortages caused by the “pingdemic” during the peak August holiday season.

Although the company was not experiencing any difficulties with UK staff being told to self-isolate by the NHS Covid app, Getlink was uniquely positioned because it regularly used French staff in Britain and vice-versa to manage peaks in demand.

The remarks came as Getlink revenues fell 12pc to €326m for the first six months of the year. Pre-tax losses were €126m, higher than the €85m posted this time last year because it included the months prior to the pandemic hitting in March.

The losses were in line with City expectations.

(Bloomberg) -- After her bachelorette getaway in Austin, Texas, last weekend, Corey Bradley was getting ready to return to New York City when she got an alert from JetBlue announcing her flight was canceled. She visited the carrier’s website to rebook, but got an error message. When she called customer service, a recorded voice told her she would have to wait—for six hours.

“The flight was shorter than that,” Bradley said. 

The 31-year-old physician scrambled to find a same-day ticket, but balked at the $1,800 fare. She ended up using her sister’s hotel voucher to stay another night, and forked over $450 for a trip home July 19, the next day. Bradley said she still doesn’t know if she’ll recoup the cost of her canceled flight from JetBlue.

If you’re planning a vacation during the traditional summer high season, Bradley’s nightmare could be yours. Thousands of passengers have come face-to-face with similar troubles as they took to the skies after a year or more of staying close to home. For a whole host of reasons, August could be even worse.

Capacity constraints at some airlines, labor shortages all across the hospitality industry mixed with surging demand and unprecedented weather conditions are weighing on summer holiday plans. Add to that the coronavirus delta variant and its disastrous spread across the globe and Americans are in for a frustrating time.

Southwest Airlines Co. and American Airlines Group Inc. scrubbed around 3% of their flights in the first six days of July, while more than 33% were delayed, aviation data firm FlightAware found. The industry’s annual average in 2019 hovered around 1.8% for cancellations and 18.7% for delays, according to the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

“Those fits and starts make the summer travel season a little more difficult,” Bloomberg Intelligence senior airline analyst George Ferguson said. “It’s not a terrible experience, but it’s not a beautiful experience.”

Many in the U.S. might just take a deep breath and try to get away anyway, given the sheer number of weddings, vacations and family reunions Covid-19 has thwarted. Data from the Transportation Security Administration shows crowds at airport security checkpoints have steadily climbed this year, with over 2.2 million people going through on July 18 alone, a figure almost fit for normal times.

Planes were 88.8% full on average in the seven days ending July 18, compared with 89.8% at the same time in 2019, according to industry group Airlines for America. However, maintenance required on aircraft that had been parked during the pandemic meant some carriers didn’t have enough planes to meet demand early in the surge.

In addition, unprecedented heat, wildfires and storms have pummeled huge swaths of the country, making flying more unpredictable. Derek Dombrowski, a spokesperson for JetBlue, said weather has been the primary cause of operational issues, and a spokesperson for Southwest, Brian Parrish, also attributed recent delays and cancellations to the elements. On July 19, smoke from massive fires in the West delayed arrivals at Denver International Airport, the country’s fifth-busiest airfield.

New York-resident Sophie Vigeland and her boyfriend, Griffin Donnelly, traveled to Athens in early July, also visiting Santorini’s whitewashed villages and Rome’s storied Forum. They were set to return on a Sunday, but United Airlines canceled their flight, and they could only get seats for two days later, she said.

That meant spending an additional $1,000 to cover the extra hotel nights, meals and Covid-19 tests, given the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirement that all air passengers entering the U.S. present results no older than 72 hours.  

While Vigeland said she feels lucky to have traveled, she was frustrated after having received no assurance from United that she would be made whole given the added expenses. In an emailed statement, United spokesperson Leigh Schramm said the flight was canceled due to severe weather at her destination, Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, a factor outside of the carrier’s power. Accommodations are provided in most cases for customers who face controllable delays, the company added.

Still, the delay meant added financial stress. “We saved up for the vacation,” Vigeland said. But “we planned for 10 days—not 13.”

Meanwhile, a worker shortfall tied to the pandemic is adding to traveler woes. The airline industry employed 12.6% fewer people in May compared with 2019, according to the latest U.S. government figures. In June, American Airlines canceled 950 flights in the first two weeks of July, citing poor weather conditions and a labor shortage, saying that in some cases delays due to storms exhausted its group of reserve pilots. 

Sarah Jantz, a spokesperson for the carrier, said July 19 that the changes amounted to less than 1% of flights and that the completion rate for trips had improved.

Airlines are working to retrain pilots who’d fallen behind on their certifications while planes were grounded, and have been calling back flight attendants on voluntary leave. But many of their contractors are having a hard time recruiting, according to Laura Moran, a spokesperson at the Service Employees International Union, which represents airport staff in charge of, among other things, cleaning, security and baggage.

For Moran, it comes down to pay. workers such as cabin cleaners and wheelchair agents often make around $12 an hour and don’t always have benefits, according to an SEIU 2016 survey. Moran said rates for many remain around those levels, though workers at airports including San Francisco International and New York’s John F. Kennedy have received pay bumps. 

“All of these little frustrations aren’t because workers don’t want to work,” said Moran, the communications director for a campaign to organize airport staff. “People want to work when they’re fairly compensated.”

Then there’s the ongoing coronavirus threat. In a Deloitte LLP survey published in May, 95% of travelers ranked fare prices as their priority when booking flights, but 91% also said they picked a carrier based on the safety protocols. Covid concerns are driving people to choose nonstop flights over those with layovers, as well as to seek more flexibility with trips, said Ramya Murali, a principal at the firm.

Unlike last summer, when the South and West were being hammered by the second U.S. infection wave, virus worries are probably not enough to make vacationers tear up their plans, according to Cowen Inc. senior research analyst Helane Becker. However, they could prompt a larger-than-usual decline in travel after the Labor Day Holiday on Sept. 6, she said.

Moreover, with the delta variant dominating what’s now the start of a fifth infection wave, those who have yet to make plans for next month may think twice, depending on what the coming weeks bring.

Bradley already made her decision, but it wasn’t because of the variant. She and her husband-to-be, Michael Murn, are getting married in September and were thinking about flying somewhere this summer. But after her bachelorette debacle, they’ll probably just take a road-trip to New Jersey.

Even if they hit some traffic, she said, “we don’t have to worry about this sort of chaos.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

(Bloomberg) -- Negotiations between the European Union and the U.S. to recognise each other’s vaccination passes are struggling to make headway due to the absence of a federal certification system in America, according to a diplomatic memo seen by Bloomberg.

EU ambassadors were told at a meeting on Thursday that the European Commission is, however, in an advanced stage of talks with the U.K., and in contact with Japan, Australia and Canada. Discussions with Ottawa were described as promising and officials are hoping that the EU’s Covid certificates will be recognised in September when Canada is due to reopen travel to vaccinated non-U.S. travelers, the memo says.

The talks are taking place as Europe and much of the western world starts to gradually open up air travel after it ground to a near halt during the pandemic. But with the delta variant becoming dominant in much of the EU, and vaccination and infection rates varying significantly across countries, rules remain patchy. Some countries require people to quarantine while others only allow vaccinated arrivals.

The U.S. has been slow to lift a ban on visitors from most of Europe instituted during the Trump administration and continued by President Joe Biden.

The EU launched its Covid pass, which also registers negative tests, at the beginning of the month. The commission told ambassadors that as of 19 July, more than 290 million certificates had been issued, of which 230 million are vaccination passes. It also noted that by early July 2021, air traffic had increased by 20% and was expected to reach more than 60% of 2019 levels this month.

Some member states now require a Covid pass to enter certain events and settings, such as soccer stadiums and indoor restaurants. The bloc’s executive arm explained that talks with non-EU countries were about ensuring that passes were interoperable, and met technical and security standards.

Negotiations with the U.S. have been ongoing since last month when the two sides set up a task force to explore how to resume transatlantic travel. The concept of vaccine passports has been met with significant resistance in the U.S., especially from Republicans.

Read More: Airlines Push to Bridge the Atlantic Divide Before Summer Ends

The North Atlantic corridor connecting the U.S. with Europe is the single most profitable corner of the global aviation market, filled with premium travelers paying extra for first-class and business-class seats.

The travel route was devastated by the pandemic and carriers on both sides of the Atlantic have lobbied forcefully for a relaxation of border curbs.

They’ve had some relief since late June, when the EU started to open up to travelers from outside countries including the U.S. But the move hasn’t been reciprocated. Airlines have since been bringing back flights, but while Americans can holiday in Greece or Spain, Europeans aren’t able to go to New York or Miami.

Seat capacity between the U.S. and major European markets including France, Germany and Italy, stands at about 70% of where it was before the start of the pandemic, according to data from flight tracker OAG.

The U.S. last week raised its travel alert on the U.K., telling Americans to avoid traveling there because of a surge in infections.

The commission told ambassadors at the meeting this week that it had received requests for mutual vaccine pass recognition from several countries, including North Macedonia, Turkey, Israel, Morocco and Ukraine. It has already reached an agreement with Switzerland and is due to do so soon with the Holy See, San Marino, Andorra and Monaco.

Travel insurance and coronavirus

When buying travel insurance, check whether the policy provides cancellation cover that includes coronavirus risks, including if you fall ill or need to isolate before you travel. You should also have cover in case you fall ill (including with Covid) while you are away. Read the policy documents and check levels of cover with the insurer if you are not sure what protection is provided.

Whether you’re planning an Inter-railing adventure, a gap year or a weekend jaunt to a European capital, student travel insurance is essential. It could cover you financially in a medical emergency, if you lost your bags, or if you unexpectedly needed to cancel your trip.

Here we detail why student travel insurance is a must-buy before any trip, what it should cover you for, how to find the right student travel insurance policy for you, and what to pay attention to in a policy.

Why do I need student travel insurance?

If you’re young and healthy and on a budget, it can be tempting to skip buying travel insurance to keep your costs down. But, if something were to go wrong while you’re away, this decision could cost you dear.

In its guidance on travel insurance, the UK government website talks about the cost of medical emergencies abroad. It gives the example of a potential cost of £100,000 for the treatment of a stomach bug or infection in a hospital in the USA, with return flights.

It also gives the potential cost of £25,000 for medical treatment after a moped accident in Greece, with surgery and repatriation to the UK. In these cases, travel insurance would be vital.

And, while you may not think you’ve taken much away with you, if your phone and other electrical devices were lost or stolen, think carefully about whether you could afford to replace them. If not, this is where travel insurance can help.

What does student travel insurance cover?

A comprehensive student travel insurance policy should cover the following at a minimum:

• Delay cover.

Depending on the type of trip you’ve booked, you may also want to look out for extra cover tailored to your break. For example, if you’re planning on taking part in extreme sports, or other sporting activities, it’s worth checking what is covered as standard.

Winter sports usually need additional cover, as do other activities such as hang-gliding, horse-rising and some contact sports such as rugby.

If your activity is excluded, talk to your insurer about adding extra cover on.

If you’ve put your trip together yourself rather than booking an ATOL-protected package holiday, it may also be worth looking for a policy that covers ‘end supplier failure’ or ‘scheduled airline failure’, so you’re protected financially should one of the companies you booked with go into administration.

What type of student travel insurance is available?

When you take a student travel insurance policy out, you’ll be given a number of choices to help ensure the policy adequately covers your trips.

For example, you’ll be asked whether you’d like to take out an annual multi-trip policy or single-trip travel insurance. Annual travel insurance is designed to cover you for all of your holidays within a 12-month period, so if you know you will go away twice or more in a year, it’s worth considering as it may save you money when compared with buying several single-trip policies.

However, if you are going away for an extended period of time, such as on a backpacking holiday or a gap year, standard policies won’t usually be the best option as many have limits on the number of days away they will cover both on a single trip and in total over a year.

So, in such a case, you’ll need to take out a specialist backpacker travel insurance policy or a gap year policy, both of which are designed for longer trips.

If you’re studying abroad, you may be able to take out specialist cover for this too, to cover extra elements such as cancelled course fees.

Another decision you’ll be asked to make when taking a policy out is the geographical area you’d like it to cover.

This is usually split into European cover and worldwide cover. Check carefully that the destinations you are travelling to are included in your insurer’s definition of European or worldwide: destinations such as Turkey are included under European policies with certain companies but not others.

Be aware that there are usually two categories for worldwide travel insurance too – those that cover trips to the USA, Canada and the Caribbean, and those that don’t.

If you buy an annual policy that covers Europe but later in the year plan a trip further afield, ask your insurer to extend the coverage - they’ll charge an extra premium for doing this.

What should I look out for on a student travel insurance policy?

Once you’ve decided on the policy type you need, look carefully at the financial limits on your policy to ensure you’re adequately covered for your trip.

• Look at both the overall amount you can claim for lost possessions and the limit for any one individual item. If you have pricey gadgets that won’t be covered by this, you may be able to add gadget cover or buy it separately.

The ‘excess’ on a policy is another important element to pay attention to. This is the amount that will be deducted from the value of any claim you make, and is typically set at £50.

It may reduce the price of a policy if you agree to a higher excess amount, but think realistically what you could afford to see knocked off your claim payment as this may work out to be a false economy.

And read the terms and conditions of your policy carefully, looking out for any exclusions regarding claims. Reasons your insurer may not pay out include:

• some types of work on gap year policies, such as manual labour.

It’s also worth checking whether coming back home to the UK will end your policy or whether you’re allowed to come back and go away again a certain number of times during the life of the policy.

If you are unsure about any of the above exclusions, or others you notice, talk to your insurer.

When should I take out student travel insurance?

As with any travel insurance policy, the best time to buy student travel insurance is as soon as you’ve booked your trip. This is because comprehensive travel insurance policies will protect you financially for cancellation should you have to call a trip off unexpectedly due to a situation such as family illness or death, divorce or redundancy.

What is a GHIC - and will I need one?

European Health Insurance Cards (EHICs) are being replaced by GHICs (UK Global Health Insurance Cards) following a Brexit deal. These give you the right to access state healthcare for free or at a reduced price in Europe.

If you already have an EHIC, this will be valid until it expires but if you need to renew it, you will have to apply for the new, free GHIC card through the NHS.

The main difference between the cards is that GHICs only cover you in EU countries, whereas EHICs extended to Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland too. After 31 December 2020, EHICs no longer cover treatment in Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein and Switzerland either.

Some travel insurers will waive the excess on medical claims if you use your EHIC/GHIC, while others may insist you have one. However, an EHIC/GHIC is not a substitute for travel insurance as it won’t cover certain medical costs such as rescue from a ski slope or medical repatriation to the UK, or any of the other important elements of travel insurance, such as cancellation or lost possessions.

How do I find cheap student travel insurance?

It’s not wise to buy travel insurance based purely on it being the cheapest available as basic policies may not give you the cover you need.

However, you don’t want to pay over the odds for a policy. So, a good way to feel confident that you’ve taken out the best policy for you at a competitive price, is to use a comparison service to look at a number of policies from different companies side-by-side.

(Bloomberg) -- Politicians and scientists in the U.K. are concerned that people are deleting the official Covid-19 mobile phone app, or at least switching off its tracing function, to avoid having to self-isolate.

Just under 620,000 people in England and Wales were “pinged” by the National Health Service Covid-19 app and told to isolate in the past week -- a record, and up from around 530,000 the week before, official figures show.

Yet the recent rate of growth in app alerts has been slower than the increase in Covid-19 infections. That’s stirred warnings that amid the growing furor about a “pingdemic” and its impact on key industries, more people are simply disabling a key part of the app that the government and health experts say is critical to halting the spread of the disease.

The fear is that public trust in the test, trace and isolate program as a whole is eroding, just as virtually all pandemic rules were lifted in England this month.

“It isn’t rocket science: if you’re asking people to do something that’s difficult for them, guess what -- they’re not going to do it,” said Henry Potts, a professor at University College London who specializes in health data. “Isolating is difficult, it’s inconvenient -- for some people it’s very difficult.”

Potts said surveys show an increase in the number of app deletions in the last few months, and that suggestions ministers were considering tweaking the app to make it less sensitive had been “unhelpful.” They drew “attention from the fact that the reason you’re being pinged is that there’s lots of cases,” he said.

An opinion poll by Savanta ComRes released this month found that a third of 18 to 34 year-olds in the U.K. have deleted the app, having previously downloaded it. Jenny Harries, head of the U.K. Health Security Agency, told members of Parliament that she was “aware that people are choosing not to use the app.”

The app uses Bluetooth technology to anonymously detect whether users have been within two meters of someone who’s subsequently tested positive for Covid-19 for 15 minutes or more. There’s no legal duty to self-isolate when someone gets an alert, but it’s strongly encouraged by the government.

“The reason that so many people are receiving notifications is simple. We have a highly transmissible virus that is being allowed to spread throughout the country with the bare minimum of mitigation,” said Stephen Griffin, associate professor in the University of Leeds School of Medicine.

Reopening

Daily cases in the U.K. as measured by specimen date reached more than 60,000 last week but have receded a bit. Cases fell for a third day on Friday, pulling the seven-day rolling average down to 44,249 from a recent peak of 47,696. Scientists, though, caution that the effects of reopening the economy haven’t yet filtered through into the data.

As food and logistics companies warn of critical staff shortages, ministers are allowing limited numbers of key workers to avoid the 10-day self-isolation that’s supposed to follow a “ping,” to ensure services can keep running. The government is also planning to exempt anyone who’s fully vaccinated from Aug. 16.

That change should happen immediately to avoid “large numbers of people” deleting the app and even avoid getting tested, senior Conservative MP Mark Harper told Parliament on Thursday. “People will simply stop listening and that’s very dangerous for public health,” he said.

The Department of Health and Social Care said the app had been downloaded over 26 million times, but declined to comment on how many people had since deleted it or switched off the contact tracing function.

The app prevented an estimated 600,000 Covid-19 cases and 8,000 deaths between September and December 2020, a spokesperson for the department said.

“The whole point about self-isolation is that we are protecting wider society and I think that people should be following the rules,” Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng told Sky News on Thursday, calling it a “real shame” if people are deleting the app.

(Bloomberg) --

Ghana seems to be facing a third wave of coronavirus infections driven by the more transmissible delta variant, according to President Nana Akufo-Addo.

The West African nation restricted the time of events such as weddings and funerals to two hours, banning post-event receptions because of the risk of people abandoning safety protocols such as mask-wearing and social distancing.

“It appears that our nation like many others is experiencing a third wave of Covid-19 infections,” Akufo-Addo said in a state broadcast late Sunday. “These increased infections have largely been driven by the delta variant of the virus.”

Ghana has seen over 102,000 Covid-19 cases, including 823 deaths, since the first case was reported. Active cases more than tripled to 4,521 as of July 23 from 1,200 in June, according to Akufo-Addo who described the trend as alarming. The delta variant has led in recent weeks to “a rise in hospitalization and ICU bed uptakes, and tragically deaths,” he said.

The country, which aims to vaccinate its 20 million adults by the end of this year, has set aside $25 million to help fund local vaccine manufacturing, he said.

BY  Goddy Egene

International investors have been urged to take advantage of the reduction in the minimum investment in the EB-5 Investor Programme in the United States (US) to $500,000 from $900,000.

The Houston EB5, through the years, has worked diligently towards helping international investors gain permanent United States (US)residency in return for making a qualified real estate investment.

However, in 2019, the US government implemented changes to the EB-5 Investor Programme as part of a comprehensive EB-5 modernisation law passed by Congress, which led to the increase in the minimum investment amounts from $500,000 to $900,000 for Targeted Employment Area (TEA) investments and $1 million to $1.8 million for non-Targeted Employment Area (TEA) investments.

A new hope was reinstated following the recent court ruling by The U.S Northern District Court of California, which reduced the EB-5 Minimum Investment to $500,000 on June 23, 2021, on the ground that the decision to increase the minimum EB-5 investment amount from $500,000 to $900,000 must be vacated as the USCIS Acting Director lacked the authority at that time to issue that regulation.

Although there are currently two new EB-5 bills including Regional Center reauthorization circulating in the U.S. Senate, both contemplating a higher investment amount and this is expected to happen in September 2021, investors have between now until September 30th at the latest (per key USCIS Sunset dates) to secure their spot in an EB-5 project at the $500,000 investment level.

Beside, everyone in the industry is unsure how long this the ruling will remain effective, it is clear that for a short period of time investors can invest $500,000 to become eligible for an EB-5 green card. Hence, the Chief Executive Officer of 3INVEST, a real estate investment group and the African partner to Houston EB5, Ruth Obih, has advised intending investors to key into this opportunity.

“Just like the US lottery, this may just be a rare and final opportunity for families who want to obtain a 2nd passport through US EB5 Investing,” she said, noting that the 2019 increase to $900,000 saw a drop in the level of investors.

The Managing Director, Houston EB5, Acho Azuike, said: “Additionally, another attractive aspect of the new opportunity is that returns are paid yearly instead of being accrued.” He explained that going forward, only direct EB5 Investment and projects creating direct employment such as Moderno Porcelain works, which is the latest project currently offered by Houston EB-5 will qualify for the EB-5 Visa.

“Serving as the future of EB5 Investing, Moderno Porcelain Works, is currently one of the few approved operational businesses in the EB-5 industry ready and able to process direct EB-5 investments in the US. Moderno Porcelain Works offer a more personalised investment opportunity and smaller capital raise to begin each project,” said.

According to him, Houston EB5 chose to offer an EB-5 Visa investment in Moderno for several strategic reasons including the ability to provide repeatable, predictable results. “Moderno is a matured business model with several large retail and builder accounts to service. Your investment will fund the opening of new service locations (HUBs), expanding Moderno’s national reach. With six operational centres currently, in Texas, Florida, and Minnesota, EB-5 Houston completed the raise for three additional locations with plans to expand to a total of 60 cities by 2026,” Azuike said.

Heathrow Airport has been busy with passengers following the easing of travel restrictions, which mean people are not required to quarantine upon return from green and amber list countries.

Some Britons who have been double-vaccinated abroad will soon be able to travel to the UK more easily, as the government prepares to recognise jabs administered overseas.

Current restrictions mean only those who have been fully inoculated by the NHS are able to take advantage of avoiding quarantine if coming from countries graded green and amber under the traffic light system.

Hundreds of thousands of British citizens who are dual nationals or have been living or working abroad have still been forced to isolate for up to 10 days, but the rules are expected to be changed for some from August.

Those who have had both jabs in other countries but are registered with a GP in the UK will be able to apply to register these with the NHS – but the doses must be Moderna, Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer/BioNTech or Janssen.

© 2021 SOPA ImagesLONDON, UNITED KINGDOM - 2021/07/20: NHS health worker administers Pfizer/ BioNTec Covid-19 vaccine to a member of public at a vaccination centre in London. (Photo by Dinendra Haria/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

The vaccines minister, Nadhim Zahawi, signalled the move in a little-noticed response to an MP during a Commons debate last week.

He said: “By the end of this month, UK nationals who have been vaccinated overseas will be able to talk to their GP, go through what vaccine they have had, and have it registered with the NHS that they have been vaccinated.”

Zahawi said GPs would vet whether the jabs had been approved for use in the UK, with the more long-term goal of coordinating a commonly agreed vaccine standard with the World Health Organization and medicines’ regulators in the US and European Union.

He also hinted that all travellers coming from abroad who have been double-vaccinated with a jab authorised in the UK could have their doses recognised – not just those who are registered with a British GP – saying: “We want to offer the same reciprocity as the 33 countries that recognise our [NHS] app, and that will also happen very soon.”

Ministers are expected to announce the change later this week, as part of a review of the wider rules governing international travel due to be held before 31 July.

Given the NHS is a residency-based system, the number of people living overseas who are registered with a GP in the UK is likely to be fairly limited, leading to criticism that a tweak to the rules is “useless” for the millions of Britons living abroad for whom this will not make any significant change.

Expats who have been living outside the UK for some time and therefore are not registered with a GP (as they are told to deregister when they move abroad) will hope for a bigger overhaul of the rules later in the summer to also recognise their double-vaccination status.

John Holland-Kaye, the chief executive of Heathrow airport, said “the travel sector is still the only part of the economy which is still under very tight controls by the government” and that there had been no “freedom day” for those who wanted to visit friends and relatives in another country.

The next update to the red, amber and green lists is not expected to happen until next Thursday, 5 August. Particular attention will be paid to the fate of France, which earlier this month ministers were advised to put on the red list over the spread of the Beta variant.

Instead, the government put France on what has become known as the “amber plus” list, meaning double-vaccinated travellers returning from the country are not able to avoid quarantine, and must instead isolate for 10 days at home or use the “test to release” system after day five.