Home » News: UK bans travellers from 30 Countries including some African nations as second wave of COVID-19 takes a deadlier toll

News: UK bans travellers from 30 Countries including some African nations as second wave of COVID-19 takes a deadlier toll

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The United Kingdom Government has banned travellers from 14 African countries and South American nations and Portugal from the UK as the country battling to contain the second wave of the COVID-19 virus which has a strain more deadly than the first wave.

According totelegraph.co.uk, Boris Johnson confirmed that arrivals from 30 different countries will have to quarantine in Government-provided hotels “without exception”.

“We have banned all travel from 30 countries where there is a risk of known variants including South Africa, Portugal and South American nations,” Mr Johnson told MPs.

“I can announce that we will require all such arrivals who cannot be refused entry to isolate in Government provided accommodation, such as hotels, for 10 days without exception.”
The Department of Health is working to establish quarantine hotels “as fast as possible”, the Prime Minister added.

Speaking in the House of Commons this afternoon, Home Secretary Priti Patel said journeys must be “absolutely essential”.

Passengers’ justification for their journey will be checked by airlines on departure, she said, with people told to go home if they do not have a valid reason.

Nicola Sturgeon said this afternoon that the Government’s quarantine plan “does not go far enough” and should instead act as a blanket measure.

The news that Portugal is to be classed as a “high risk” nation and its citizens subject to two weeks hotel quarantine when arriving in the UK has hardly registered in the Iberian country, which is fighting a devastating third wave of the virus.

Although the new measures, announced by the Prime Minister, have been put in place in a bid to prevent the new Brazilian variant of the virus reaching Britain, it is the fast-moving UK variant that is driving the crisis in Portugal.

Record death tolls from the pandemic were set each day last week, rising steadily from 152 on January 17 to 275 on January 24, while on Saturday 15,000 new cases were registered in just 24 hours.

The local news is full of pictures of exhausted medics and ambulances forming long lines outside hospitals, and the government was considering a formal request to the EU to provide extra medics.

It was a familiar scene in the country with the world’s fastest vaccinations drive, James Rothwell reports. Ariel Wilfand went to his local clinic in Jerusalem and within five minutes had received his first Covid jab.

But Ariel, who came to the clinic with his father, is no frail octogenarian. He’s a teenager, one of thousands being vaccinated by Israel as they sit important exams in the weeks to come.

“I feel good,” said the 17-year-old after receiving his first dose of the Covid vaccine. “I want life to go back to normal as quickly as possible so I’m very hopeful.”

“This is the one thing I’m really pleased about this year,” Ariel said of the country’s lightning-speed inoculations campaign, which has already given the first jab to more than a quarter of the population.

Lockdown will last for at least another five weeks, it has emerged, after Boris Johnson announced today that schools will remain closed after February half-term.

The Prime Minister told MPs in the Commons that classrooms will stay shut to most pupils until at least March 8
“The introduction of quarantine hotels is another death knell – for the travel industry as a whole, but especially for business travel,” says Clive Wratten, CEO of the Business Travel Association.

“Public safety must come first, but we question the timing of this announcement and the lack of investment in a long-term strategy to get the UK travelling again such as pre-departure testing.”

Speaking to Telegraph Travel, Wratten emphasised that business travellers “are not just people in suits – they are key workers, humanitarian workers, scientists, students.”

He added: “Placing the burden of proof for the validity of travel onto international carriers is an untenable situation for companies and staff that are already at breaking point.

The Home Office has confirmed that, although Boris Johnson said 22 countries would be affected in the Commons earlier, the hotel quarantine rules will apply to 30 countries.

These are: Angola, Argentina, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Eswatini, French Guiana, Guyana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal (including Madeira and the Azores), Seychelles, South Africa, Suriname, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

 

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