# Seeing red on UK travel rules : Several Indians readying to travel to Britain are seeing red over the recent changes in the UK government’s Covid-19 related travel protocol.

The new rules effectively categorise Indian travellers as “unvaccinated”, even if they have taken both doses of Covishield, the AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccine made by Serum Institute of India, Pune. The move has evoked strong reactions across the board in India, including from senior Congress leaders and MPs, who called out the new rule as “racist” and “offensive”. Specially so, when two Indian companies supply the same vaccine to the UK.

# On the mend? Hopefully, though, a quick resolution is in sight. According to reports, the UK on Monday has said it is engaging with India to explore how it could expand the recognition of the Covid-19 vaccine certification issued by Indian authorities amid criticism of the new British travel rules.

# Vaccine exports : The much-awaited export of Covid-19 vaccines from India will resume in the fourth quarter of 2021, starting October, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said. The development comes as several international agencies like GAVI, the vaccine alliance, and the African Union urged India to resume exports, with Covid-19 cases stabilising in the country.

# “Predictable graph” in Kerala : State authorities say, the increasingly predictable nature of the Covid graph has prompted the State government to look at the prospect of reopening of schools, higher education institutions and professional colleges - eliciting mixed reactions from public heatlh experts and Covid specialists.

# 50 lakh request : Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin has requested the Prime Minister to facilitate supply of 50 lakh Covid vaccine doses to the State every week.

# Expiry date : While everyone scrambles for more vaccines – a global data projection has come as a shocker. More than 100 million vaccines are set to expire by the end of the year and need to be redistributed immediately, said science analytics company Airfinity. Their projections come at a time when public health advocates around the world call out developed countries over the inequitable distribution of vaccines. The projection gets worse, when taking into account the two-month shelf-life, beyond which vaccines are wasted. That estimate takes the wasted doses number up to 241 million.

# Less acrimony over US travel rules : Meanwhile the the US on Monday announced a new international travel system under which fully vaccinated individuals would be allowed to enter the country beginning in November, reports said.

This essentially also lifts the travel ban on countries like India that the US had earlier enforced. Former president Donald Trump had imposed a blanket ban on foreign travellers from entering the US at the start of the Covid pandemic in early 2020.

# And finally, listen in to the link that vaccination has with education .

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