COVID-19 Update
Last week, we received our first notice from USPS that service to certain countries is officially suspended by the US Postal Service.
Access Worldwide has contingency plans in place to handle these country suspensions. Any suspended countries will be diverted to a special hold area and kept by country and by day. Once the suspensions are lifted we will enter the mail at that time. We are set up to handle this country by country, so that we can release each country’s mail as soon as they are able to accept it.
The Postal Service will temporarily suspend international mail acceptance to destinations where air and sea transportation is unavailable due to widespread cancellations and restrictions into the area:
- Angola
- Benin
- Bolivia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Botswana
- Burundi
- Cameroon
- Cayman Islands
- Chad
- Cook Islands
- Costa Rica
- Cuba
- Curacao
- Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Ecuador
- Fiji
- French Polynesia
- Gambia
- Guatemala
- Guinea Bissau
- Guyana
- Honduras
- India
- Kenya
- Kiribati
- Kuwait
- Kyrgyzstan
- Laos
- Lebanon
- Lesotho
- Libya
- Madagascar
- Malawi
- Maldives
- Mauritius
- Moldova
- Mongolia
- Mozambique
- Nepal
- New Caledonia
- New Guinea
- Panama
- Papua New Guinea
- Paraguay
- Peru
- Republic of the Congo
- Rwanda
- Samoa
- Saudi Arabia
- Senegal
- Seychelles
- Solomon Islands
- South Africa
- Sri Lanka
- Sudan
- Tajikistan
- Tanzania
- Timor-Leste
- Tonga
- United Arab Emirates
- Uganda
- Uruguay
- Vanuatu
- Venezuela
- Zambia
- Zimbabwe
The following countries have suspended certain mail services:
- Madagascar UPDATE: Paositra Malagasy has advised that the Government of Madagascar has extended the state of emergency in the country until April 19, 2020.
- South Africa UPDATE: South African Post Office Ltd. has advised that the government has extended the lockdown until April 30, 2020. The previously declared force majeure situation remains in place. At present, normal services are due to resume as of May 4, 2020.
The following countries have announced service disruptions:
- Philippines UPDATE: Philippine Postal Corporation has advised the period of community quarantine has been extended until April 30, 2020.
– International mail processing centers will maintain a skeleton workforce in order to accept incoming international dispatches. However, items will be processed and forwarded to delivery post offices upon resumption of the normal work schedule, which is schedule for April 30, 2020.
– There will be no international dispatches from the Philippines to the United States until end of the community quarantine.
- South Korea UPDATE: Korea Post has advised that, owing to the suspension of flights, the processing of all outbound letter-post, parcel-post and EMS items destined to Guam is suspended from April 10, 2020 until further notice.
– Delays to inbound and outbound postal items are expected during the community quarantine period. Detailed information on the areas covered by the community quarantine will be provided as soon as it is available.
As always, we are available to discuss at your convenience. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns about these new developments.