Many countries banned flights to South Africa.
Johannesburg:
Travel restriction will be banned from South Africa and seven other countries to prevent a new coronavirus variant from spreading there. Starting Monday, only US citizens and residents will be allowed to travel into South Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared this new variant as “a matter of concern” and the new variant has been named Omicron. Criticizing the imposition of the travel ban, South African Health Minister Joe Fahla said this.
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He said that due to the new and potentially more infectious nature of Covid, the imposition of travel restrictions on his country one after the other is ‘cruel’ and ‘a step in the wrong direction’. Covid’s new variant B.1.1.529 was first detected in South Africa this week, which the World Health Organization on Friday classified it as a ‘worrying variant’ and named it Omicron.
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“We feel this is a wrong initiative,” Fahla told a press conference here. This is a step taken in the wrong direction and is against the rules recommended by the World Health Organization. We just feel that some of the leadership of (these) countries are looking for scapegoats to deal with the situation which is a global problem.
The ‘Worrying Variant’ is the WHO’s top category among the various variants of the worrying Covid-19. It was first detected in South Africa on 24 November. It has also been identified in Botswana, Belgium, Hong Kong and Israel.
Fahla said, “It is ironic that we are discussing a small sample in South Africa today while we are concerned about the rapid increase in cases in 14 days from a low of just around 300 per day. We are reaching 3000 cases here (daily). He said, “This is a big increase but compare with some countries, which are reacting very strongly, we are talking about countries where there is an increasing infection rate of 40,000 new infections daily. The minister said, “We do not want to blame but the way the virus spreads through the movement of people, it is not inconceivable that it is also possible that it may have originated in those countries also which are concerned with crowd management.” And where masks are not applied or other precautions are not taken in the stadium.
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Pahala said he was aware that the announcement of the discovery by South African scientists on Thursday has created fear and uncertainty. “This is anticipated in the kind of situation where we are dealing with a rising target, but we want to reassure the people of South Africa and around the world that we believe some of the moves are indeed inappropriate,” he said. “I am specifically referring to the countries of Europe here.” Britain announced on Thursday a ban on flights to and from South Africa. After that many other European countries took this step.
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