Red travel list25 Nov 2021 21:01
South Africa could go on the red travel list as soon as tomorrow after No10 was warned that a new Covid variant spreading rapidly there was the most worrying strain ever seen. The UK Health Security Agency said B.1.1.529 (left) has more than 30 mutations – the most ever recorded in a variant and twice as many as Delta – that suggest it could be more vaccine resistant and transmissible than any version before it. It has caused an ‘exponential’ rise in infections in South Africa (bottom-right, its sharp rise; top-right, general case numbers in the country) and has already spread to three countries – including Hong Kong and Botswana, where it is believed to have emerged. UK Government scientists suggested that it could make the current vaccines at least 40 per cent less effective at preventing infection, in a best-case scenario. It’s unclear what impact the variant – which could be named ‘Nu’ by the World Health Organization in the coming days - will have on protection against serious illness, hospitalisation or death. Ministers were called to an emergency meeting of the Covid Operations cabinet committee tonight, chaired by Cabinet Office minister Steven Barclay, to discuss shutting Britain’s borders to travellers from Africa. There are around 700 travellers flying into the UK from South Africa (pictured main, a jab being administered in the country) every day and an estimated 10,000 will have returned since the variant was first spotted on November 11 in Botswana. No cases have been detected in the UK so far but everyone who has returned from South Africa in the past 10 days will be contacted and asked to take a test.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10229159/South-Africa-new-red-travel-list-early-TOMORROW-fears-mutant-strain.html
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