#circulationtransfrontalière

Hong Kong residents crossing border at Shenzhen Bay Port can soon book Covid-19 tests online as eager travellers throng checkpoint | South China Morning Post
▻https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/article/3184784/hong-kong-residents-crossing-border-shenzhen-bay-port-can-soon-book

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Hong Kong residents crossing border at Shenzhen Bay Port can soon book Covid-19 tests online as eager travellers throng checkpoint.New system is aimed at easing crowding at the crossing point as travellers head to mainland China. Traffic has intensified after the Shenzhen government increased quota of quarantine hotel rooms
Hong Kong is set to allow travellers heading to mainland China through Shenzhen Bay Port to book Covid-19 tests online as residents continue to swamp the checkpoint and ignore the government’s advice to delay trips over the border.Shenzhen authorities also announced on Sunday a new measure to crack down on scalping of quarantine hotel rooms by allocating them through drawing lots following discussions with the Hong Kong government.Shenzhen Bay Port, one of just two land passenger crossings that remain open amid the pandemic, has been packed with crowds in the morning over the weekend after the Guangdong provincial city boosted the number of quarantine hotel rooms by 700 to 2,000 a day and added additional spots for those in need.
As seen during a Post visit on Sunday, queues snaked outside the checkpoint as hundreds of travellers from Hong Kong waited to undergo the required nucleic acid test before crossing.Planning to visit his relatives on the mainland, Yuen said the Shenzhen government should have made more quarantine hotel rooms available.The 2,000 a day is definitely not enough,” he said. “Residents need to go to Shenzhen. But the issue of quarantine hotel rooms should be addressed first. I was lucky to lock in my booking early on.”Alan Wong, a 49-year-old construction company manager, was unable to book a quarantine hotel room in Shenzhen and his company paid a scalper 2,300 yuan (US$293) to secure a reservation one week in advance.
Wong said that while it was fairer to use the quota system, the chances of failing to get a hotel room created too many uncertainties for people who needed to do business.“It’s just like waiting for the results of the Mark Six or a Home Ownership Scheme ballot. You’ll never know until the last minute,” Wong said.Secretary for Health Dr Lo Chung-mau visited the checkpoint in the afternoon. Earlier in the day, Lo explained in a TV interview that quarantine-free travel with the mainland remained unfeasible at the moment, as allowing it would require a significant change to the nation’s anti-pandemic policies. Lo added that Hong Kong residents needed to follow the mainland’s requirements when travelling there.
‘Faster, daily Covid PCR tests could replace Hong Kong hotel quarantine’
9 Jul 2022
A Hong Kong government spokesman said travellers would need to wait for about three hours to receive their Covid-19 test result at the control point and urged them to cross the boundary in the afternoon to avoid the morning rush.Under the coming booking arrangement, which is expected to be ready in a week, travellers must obtain a spot at a Shenzhen quarantine hotel and reserve a time for the Covid-19 test at the border crossing on the day of departure.Hongkongers hoping to travel across the border previously needed to book a room at a quarantine hotel through a government website on a first-come, first-served basis. But to combat the scalping, the Shenzhen government would allocate rooms to travellers by drawing lots, taking into consideration supply and demand, as well as the travel history of the applicant, authorities said. A traveller can only make one booking for the same date and results will be announced at 8pm daily.Society for Community Organisation deputy director Sze Lai-shan said: “The problem now is not much about online booking or queuing at the control point, but more about insufficient hotel rooms for quarantine on the Shenzhen side.
“The online booking thing is a crowd management measure. It does not mean more people can go to the mainland unless the Shenzhen side makes more quarantine hotel rooms available to meet demand.”Legislator Edward Leung Hei, of the Beijing-friendly Democratic Alliance for the Betterment and Progress of Hong Kong, urged the government to increase shuttle bus services for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge to allow more visitors to enter the mainland using that access point.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#hongkong#chine#shenzen#frontiere#circulationtransfrontalière#quarantaine#hotel#sante

Entre le Canada et les Etats-Unis, une frontière aussi interminable que l’attente de sa réouverture
▻https://www.lemonde.fr/international/article/2020/12/16/entre-le-canada-et-les-etats-unis-une-frontiere-aussi-interminable-que-l-att

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Mais en raison d’un virus dépourvu de la plus élémentaire connaissance administrative, qui impose communément de ne pas quitter un territoire sans autorisation, cette interminable frontière a été fermée le 18 mars, une première historique. Depuis, pour tenter d’endiguer la pandémie de Covid-19, particulièrement virulente aux Etats-Unis, les autorités politiques des deux pays reconduisent mois après mois son verrouillage. Pour les habitants de Stanstead, une petite ville de 2 800 âmes à cheval sur le Québec (Canada) et le Vermont (Etats-Unis), cette fermeture change tout. La frontière, symbolisée par une ligne noire peinte au sol, traverse la bibliothèque municipale Haskell : les livres côté américain, les sièges côté canadien, et des lecteurs des deux pays pour en profiter. Depuis toujours, les Canadiens de Stanstead mènent une double vie, profitant d’un boulot plus rémunérateur en dollars américains de l’autre côté de la ligne, et de maisons moins onéreuses côté québécois, avec des restaurants cosy comme
Les attentats du 11 septembre 2001 poussèrent les autorités américaines à renforcer les mesures de sécurité et exiger un passeport pour traverser la rue Canusa (pour Canada et USA) qui partage la localité en deux, mais désormais, la vigilance commandée par la peur sanitaire est surtout canadienne : des officiers de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada, aux aguets dans leurs gros SUV noirs stationnés dans la localité, appréhendent systématiquement – quoique fort courtoisement – tout imprudent touriste qui s’approche un peu trop de la ligne fatidique, et empêchent les résidents de Stanstead d’effectuer leurs traversées quotidiennes.Quelques rares et rutilants camions de marchandises poursuivent leur va-et-vient au poste frontière, afin d’assurer la survie de l’économie nationale. Le Canada a exporté en 2019 pour 447 milliards de dollars canadiens (environ 290 millions d’euros) de marchandises vers son grand voisin du sud et importé 300 milliards de dollars de produits en provenance des Etats-Unis.
A un millier de kilomètres à l’est de Stanstead, et en raison de ces allers-retours incessants, autorisés pour les seules marchandises et travailleurs essentiels, le pont Ambassadeur, qui relie Windsor en Ontario à Detroit au Michigan, n’est pas loin de gagner le surnom du « pont de la mort ». Car le « feu Covid » embrase cet Etat américain limitrophe (472 780 cas à lui seul au 15 décembre, autant que le Canada tout entier avec 472 820 cas recensés), et la province canadienne ne sait comment circonscrire l’incendie. Chaque jour, 1 500 Ontariens enjambent la rivière pour aller travailler dans les services de santé du Michigan, débordés. Comment empêcher que le virus rentre avec eux le soir ? Mais la crainte du virus est parfois moins forte que le désir d’échapper au grand froid canadien. Des « snowbirds », ces retraités québécois avides de chaleur et de soleil qui opèrent une migration annuelle vers la Floride à l’approche de l’hiver, ont choisi de profiter d’une incongruité pour échapper à leur sédentarité imposée : si la frontière terrestre entre les deux pays est bien fermée, il reste autorisé de se rendre aux Etats-Unis… par les airs ! Quelques-uns de ces « oiseaux des neiges » ont donc choisi de s’envoler vers Miami ou Orlando en empruntant les lignes aériennes régulières. Une entreprise de transport de la région de Montréal a même mis sur pied un ingénieux système qui leur permet de récupérer leurs « véhicules récréatifs » – « camping-car » comme on ne dit pas en bon québécois – de l’autre côté de la frontière : munis d’un permis de transport commercial en bonne et due forme, des chauffeurs routiers convoient ces « home sweet home » sur roues, moyennant la somme d’un millier de dollars. Une facilité réservée aux seuls plus aisés, quand tous au Canada, amoureux séparés, familles éclatées, travailleurs et simples voyageurs, rêvent de retrouver la porosité habituelle de leur immense frontière. Celle dont ils avaient presque oublié l’existence, en vivant jour après jour, un pied d’un côté, un pied de l’autre.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#etatsunis#canada#sante#frontiere#circulation#snowbird#famille#circulationtransfrontaliere

Virus pushes twin cities El Paso and Juarez to the brink
▻https://apnews.com/article/business-virus-outbreak-family-gatherings-north-america-mexico-e066bb7aaf4ad

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A record surge in coronavirus cases is pushing hospitals to the brink in the border cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, confronting health officials in Texas and Mexico with twin disasters in the tightly knit metropolitan area of 3 million people. Health officials are blaming the spike on family gatherings, multiple generations living in the same household and younger people going out to shop or conduct business.
The crisis — part of a deadly comeback by the virus across nearly the entire U.S. — has created one of the most desperate hot spots in North America and underscored how intricately connected the two cities are economically, geographically and culturally, with lots of people routinely going back and forth across the border to shop or visit with family.
“We are like Siamese cities,” said Juarez resident Roberto Melgoza Ramos, whose son recovered from a bout of COVID-19 after taking a cocktail of homemade remedies and prescription drugs. “You can’t cut El Paso without cutting Juarez, and you can’t cut Juarez without cutting El Paso.”
In El Paso, authorities have instructed residents to stay home for two weeks and imposed a 10 p.m. curfew, and they are setting up dozens of hospital beds at a convention center. Also, the University Medical Center of El Paso erected heated isolation tents to treat coronavirus patients. As of Tuesday, Ryan Mielke, director of public affairs, said the hospital had 195 COVID-19 patients, compared with fewer than three dozen less than a month ago, and “it continues to grow by the day, by the hour.” In Juarez, the Mexican government is sending mobile hospitals, ventilators and doctors, nurses and respiratory specialists. A hospital is being set up inside the gymnasium of the local university to help with the overflow. Juarez has reported more than 12,000 infections and over 1,100 deaths, but the real numbers are believed to be far higher, because COVID-19 testing is extremely limited. El Paso County recorded about 1,400 new cases Tuesday, just short of the previous day’s record of 1,443. The county had 853 patients hospitalized for the virus on Monday, up from 786 a day earlier.
Even the mayor of Juarez hasn’t been spared. Armando Cabada was first diagnosed in May and appeared to have recovered, but then landed in the hospital last week with inflamed lungs.Last week, Chihuahua, which includes Juarez, became the only state in Mexico to return to its highest level health alert, or red, under which most nonessential services are shut down and people are encouraged to stay home. A curfew is also in effect in Juarez, but it has proved difficult to enforce in the sprawling city that is home to hundreds of factories that manufacture appliances, auto parts and other products around the clock.
The U.S. and Mexico agreed months ago to restrict cross-border traffic to essential activity, but there has been little evidence Mexico has blocked anyone from entering. Other Mexican border cities have complained about people entering from U.S. cities that are suffering from virus outbreaks.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#etatsunis#mexique#frontiere#sante#circulationtransfrontaliere#crisesanitaire#politiquemigratoire

Bustling Border Towns in the Time of COVID-19 - IOM - UN Migration - Medium
▻https://medium.com/@UNmigration/bustling-border-towns-in-the-time-of-covid-19-9485ee2bbd65

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Towns along The Gambia and Senegal border, once bustling with trade and market activity, join the rest of the world in grappling with a ‘new normal’ — as migration and mobility take on new meanings in the time of COVID-19.

#Covid-19#migrant#migration#senegal#gambie#sante#economie#circulationtransfrontaliere#nouvellenormalite