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Air travel from a swathe of South American international locations shall be banned amid rising fears of a brand new variant of Covid-19 in Brazil.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, mentioned he was taking the “urgent decision” – which additionally suspends arrivals from Portugal “given its strong travel links with Brazil”.
It comes as the federal government refused to rule out bringing in more durable social-distancing measures subsequent week, amid issues that the present lockdown is probably not sufficient to carry the coronavirus outbreak underneath management.
Asked whether or not restrictions may very well be beefed-up, the house secretary, Priti Patel, solely mentioned there can be no new measures “today or tomorrow”, fuelling speculations that they might come after the weekend.
Ministers are reportedly contemplating necessary mask-wearing exterior and a ban on exercising with anybody exterior an individual’s personal family. Increasing social-distancing measures – requiring individuals to remain three-metres relatively than two-metres aside in any respect time – can be regarded as one of many insurance policies into consideration.
But the newest every day figures raised hopes that the present measures may be sufficient, because the prevalence of Covid-19 fell in most areas of England and throughout all age teams other than the over-80s.
The Public Health England knowledge reveals that though London continues to have the best price of any area, its price of recent circumstances stood at 864.9 per 100,000 individuals within the seven days to 10 January, down from 1,043.9 within the earlier week.
Scientists say the mutations of the variant shared with the South African pressure look like triggering a fast enhance in circumstances in areas the place infections had been already very excessive.
Now arrivals shall be banned – from 4am on Friday – from a complete of 15 international locations, Argentina, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Columbia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, in addition to Brazil itself.
However, British and Irish nationals, and third nation nationals with residence rights, will have the ability to fly dwelling – with the requirement that they self-isolate for 10 days, together with their households.
Mr Shapps additionally tweeted: “Travel from Portugal to the UK will even be suspended given its robust journey hyperlinks with Brazil – appearing as one other technique to cut back the danger of importing infections.
“However, there is an exemption for hauliers travelling from Portugal (only), to allow transport of essential goods.”
The transfer comes after Boris Johnson was left red-faced over the Brazil variant throughout questioning by a committee of MPs – promising he was “taking steps” with out saying what they had been.
Overnight, there was additional embarrassment when new guidelines requiring travellers arriving in England to have a unfavorable coronavirus take a look at had been out of the blue delayed to permit “time to prepare”.
The requirement for passengers by boat, practice or aircraft – together with UK nationals – to check unfavorable for Covid-19 as much as 72 hours earlier than leaving their nation of departure was additionally as a consequence of come into power at 4am on Friday.
But it has been pushed again till the identical time on Monday, amid concern that steering on which exams can be accepted had not been printed early sufficient.
Yvette Cooper, chairperson of the Commons Home Affairs Committee, described the delay in introducing the brand new guidelines as “truly shocking”.
So much continues to be unknown concerning the new variants, together with whether or not the present vaccines obtainable within the UK shall be efficient in opposition to them.
Even if not, a brand new coronavirus jab may very well be manufactured inside simply 30 to 40 days, in accordance with Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine growth minister.
There have been many mutations in Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, because it emerged in 2019, due to stress on the virus to evolve when so many thousands and thousands of individuals have now been contaminated.
Sometimes can result in weaker variations of a virus – however the brand new UK variant is extra transmissible, simply because the Brazilian pressure is regarded as.
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