British Prime Minister Johnson held a press conference on Saturday to announce the emergence of a new variant strain of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the territory, which may increase the infection rate by 70% over the old strain. In addition to the United Kingdom, a variant of the virus was also found in South Africa.
British health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Dec. 20 that the British government is implementing a strict Christmas lockdown in southeast England because the new strain is “out of control,” but a national lockdown is not inevitable.
Neighboring countries, including France, have taken countermeasures.
The French government held an emergency health meeting at 17:00 on Sunday afternoon and decided to temporarily interrupt the transportation of ships, planes and trains from Britain into French territory, not only to interrupt passenger ships and civil aircraft, but also trucks and cargo ships and freight planes. The time starts at 00:00 on Sunday night and will be interrupted for at least 48 hours.
The French Minister of Transport, who announced the decision to the media, said it was a decision taken by the President to avoid France being exposed to new variants of the virus, like other neighboring countries.
Belgium will suspend the entry of flights and trains from the UK from midnight on the 20th. This is similar to the above decision of France. Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Croo (Alexander de Croo) said that the ban will be implemented for at least 24 hours.
The Netherlands, acting earlier, has ordered a ban on all British passenger flights from 6 a.m. on Sunday 20, which will remain in place until Jan. 1 next year.
German Health Minister Spahn also said Sunday that Germany will suspend all flights with Britain from midnight, except for cargo flights. Spann also said that citizens of the UK and South Africa entering Germany by sea, rail and road, “we will implement restrictions” from the 21st.
Italy, Austria and other countries have said they will suspend flights from the UK.
The Czech Republic has announced that people who have been on British soil for at least 24 hours in the past 2 weeks must be immediately quarantined.
According to the latest information from the WHO, in addition to the UK, nine cases of the new strain of the virus have been reported in Denmark, one case in the Netherlands and one case in Australia.
A spokesperson for the WHO Regional Office for Europe said, “The outbreak is spreading dramatically and widely across Europe and countries must redouble their control and prevention measures.”
Back to the UK.
U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock also said on the 20th that the variant virus is difficult to control and that tighter restrictions in London and southeast England would help curb the disease. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve upgraded the outbreak alert level to level 4, which severely restricts travel, to try to stop the spread of this new variant of the virus.”
When Hancock was asked if people in London and southeast England living under strict level 4 restrictions should expect that to be the case for some time, he told Sky News, “We really need to contain the outbreak, but we have a long way to go and basically we have to roll out a vaccine to make sure people are safe. ” “Until we roll out a vaccine, it’s going to be very difficult to contain it.”
British Prime Minister Johnson also said confirmed cases in southeast England have spiked in the past few days due to the emergence of a new, faster-spreading variant of the virus strain, but he also said there is no evidence that the new variant is more deadly or that it would render the vaccine ineffective.
The discovery of the new strain in the United Kingdom was followed by the discovery of a variant of the virus in South Africa. South African Health Minister Mkhizi warned that healthy young people are now at risk of dying from the disease.
South African media EWN reported that Mkhize (Zweli Mkhize) published new findings with health experts and scientists on the 18th, showing that the variant virus is spreading faster and is the cause of the second wave of the epidemic in South Africa. In the past 24 hours, South Africa added 8,725 new cases, the cumulative number of cases has exceeded 901,000 cases.
Mkhizi also warned young South Africans that our young people cannot just be supervised to comply with life-saving measures. We are therefore asking parents, caregivers and young people to understand that it is not just a matter of looking out for others or yourselves now, you are also at risk of dying from coronavirus disease 2019.
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