Walk, run or bike for Planeterra’s new Around the World Challenge
Date: May 11 2021
TORONTO Planeterra’s new Around the World Challenge hits all the right notes: it encourages travel lovers to join its movement to support community tourism enterprises as travel reemerges post-COVID, while celebrating the diversity and power of community tourism.
The challenge will take place over the course of 10 days, May 17 – 26. Participants will collectively ‘travel the globe’ by walking, running, or biking 40,087 km – the distance around the equator – while aiming to raise US$40,087.
Emails and social media posts each day highlight a new region. Participants can look forward to exclusive events and videos from community tourism enterprises in places like Bolivia, Rwanda and India, plus unique cuisine, facts, and culture in more than a dozen destinations.
Nepal Faces COVID-19 Spike Similar to Indiaâs Surge
May 10, 2021 Nepal is struggling to contain a new surge in COVID-19 cases, which has led officials to worry that the situation could become similar to â or worse than â the devastating outbreak in India.
Nepal, which shares a long border with India, now has a national positivity rate of 47%. The country reported 9,070 new daily infections on Thursday, setting a nationwide record.
In the past month, cases have increased from about 100 per day to more than 8,000. The previous peak in November was about 5,700 daily cases.
âWhatâs happening in India right now is a horrifying preview of Nepalâs future if we cannot contain this latest COVID surge that is claiming more lives by the minute,â Netra Prasad Timsina, the chair of the Nepal Red Cross, told The Guardian.
China will set up a line of separation at Mount Everest s summit, as Nepal struggles to control a COVID-19 outbreak. In this photograph, on May 2, 2021 mountaineers trek along the Khumbu glacier near Everest base camp in the Mount Everest region of Solukhumbu district, some 140 km northeast of Nepal s capital Kathmandu.
China will set up a line of separation on one side of Mount Everest s peak, saying the measure is needed to keep Nepal s COVID-19 outbreak from crossing the border, according to state media.
The plan is part of China s zero contact strategy to keep climbers from the Chinese and Nepalese sides of Everest from mixing if they reach the summit on the same day, said Nyima Tsering, head of the Tibetan Sports Bureau, according to the state-run Xinhua news outlet.
Health by Merryn Johns, AFP
Premium Content The EU last month launched legal action against the pharmaceutical giant for vaccine delivery shortfalls that hampered efforts to kickstart inoculations across the bloc. Public confidence in the AstraZeneca jab, meanwhile, has taken a blow over worries of links to very rare blood clots in the brain. Some member states have restricted use to older people despite the bloc s medicines agency insisting the jab s benefits outweigh the risks. We haven t renewed the contract beyond the month of June, Commissioner Thierry Breton told French radio. Whether we do remains to be seen. Mr Breton said this did not necessarily mean the end of the European Union s vaccine dealings with the British-Swedish firm. It s not done. Wait and see, he said.
(Ben Weissenbach / For The Times)
Recent media coverage of the Solukhumbu region has focused on the Nepalese government’s questionable decision to allow climbers to return to Mt. Everest, and the infusion of tourist dollars this will bring. But for most locals many of whom took out high-interest loans to build businesses in the years leading up to the pandemic this will be too little, too late.
Climbers typically account for less than 1% of visitors to the region. Trekkers make up the rest, and they have remained almost entirely absent this season. In 2019, 7,993 people entered Sagarmatha National Park by the end of March. This year, the number was 255.