Health

Here are some ideas I’ve used for avoiding jet lag.

• Beware of long eastbound flights, especially overnight flights. They are the worst.

• If you can afford it, fly business class to be better rested.

• For eastbound transatlantic travel, I always check out the Queen Mary 2 to see if it fits our schedule. If you take an inside cabin, the fare is only a little more than economy air (and a lot less than business). You miss the jet lag and get seven nights’ accommodation, food and entertainment thrown in. 

The World Health Organization is warning of a drastic increase in cases of measles in Europe.

In 2017, more than 20,000 cases were reported in European countries, resulting in 35 deaths. In 2016, 5,273 cases were reported in the entire year, while in 2017 more than 5,000 cases each were reported in Romania and Italy. 

Other countries that had more than 500 reported cases last year were Ukraine (4,767), Greece (967), Germany (927), Serbia (703) and France (520). Health officials are blaming the anti-vaccination movement for decreasing immunization across the continent.

The US Department of State recommends avoiding travel to Venezuela because of concerns regarding violent crime, social unrest and pervasive shortages of food and medicine.

Protests may occur with minimal public notice, and from April through August 2017 they occurred daily and often turned violent. Security forces typically deployed a range of strong countermeasures, including using tear gas, pepper spray and water cannons as well as rubber bullets, birdshot, buckshot and other live ammunition. Armed pro-government motorcycle gangs sometimes attacked and intimidated protesters.

Extremely dangerous amounts of smog blanketed Delhi, in northern India, for more than a week in November, with smog levels reaching about 30 times the safe level as determined by the World Health Organization. The levels of particulates under 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) were peaking at around 1,000 micrograms per cubic meter. (Breathing in such a concentration of particulates is similar to smoking 44 cigarettes a day, according to an independent environmental research group.)