Japan announced this Monday the closure of its borders to all foreign visitors to stop the omicron variant of Covid-19 and during the day, the G7 Health ministers will meet urgently to try to draw up a common strategy in the face of this advance of the pandemic .
Three weeks after easing some restrictions, Japan decided to introduce strict border controls, something many considered a thing of the past.
We will ban the (new) entry of foreigners from around the world from November 30, “Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told reporters.
Omicron, initially detected in southern Africa, is already present in numerous countries around the world.
This Monday the G7 Health Ministers (France, the United States, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom) will meet “to discuss the evolution of the situation regarding omicron“, at an emergency meeting in London, which holds the temporary presidency of the G7.
With more than five million deaths worldwide since the pandemic was declared in 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) considered the new omicron variant “worrisome”.
“We know that we are in a race against time”, President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, who added that vaccine manufacturers need “two to three weeks” to assess whether existing vaccines are still effective against the new variant.
Several countries imposed travel restrictions on southern Africa, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the Netherlands.
Economic damage
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Sunday called on countries to lift restrictions “before further damage is done to our economies.”
Along the same lines, the WHO chief in Africa urged countries to prioritize for science rather than imposing flight restrictions to contain the new variant.
With the omicron variant detected in various regions of the world, applying travel restrictions for Africa is an attack on global solidarity, “said WHO regional director Matshidiso Moeti.
Days after South African scientists announced the discovery of this new variant, with more mutations than the previous ones detected of the coronavirus, the Bambino Gesu hospital in Rome achieved the first “image” of omicron and confirmed that it does indeed have more mutations than delta But that doesn’t mean it’s more dangerous, according to the researchers.
The Dutch authorities said that identified at least 13 cases of omicron among 61 passengers who tested positive for the coronavirus after arriving from South Africa on Saturday.
The Dutch border police announced that they detained a couple on a plane bound for Spain, after fleeing the hotel where they were quarantined. The couple, made up of a 30-year-old Spaniard and a 28-year-old Portuguese, were quarantined again and could be charged with “attack on public security.”
Despite the new threat, tens of thousands protested in Austria against mandatory vaccination in the country, the first in the EU to apply such a measure.
Chancellor Alexander Schallenberg called the protest “minor interference” for the country with one of the lowest vaccination rates in Western Europe.
In the UK, Health Secretary Sajid Javid said new health rules come into force on Tuesday, including the use of masks in shops and public transport, as well as more restrictions on passengers arriving from abroad.
Mild symptoms
And as scientists try to determine the threat level of the new variant, a South African doctor noted that dozens of her patients suspected of carrying the omicron variant showed mild symptoms, such as fatigue.
Angelique Coetzee, president of the South African Medical Association, told AFP that saw 30 patients in the last 10 days who tested positive for Covid-19 and they recovered without hospitalization.
In turn, the White House adviser on the pandemic, Anthony Fauci, said that he continues “to believe that existing vaccines should provide a degree of protection against severe cases of covid.”
Faced with what it sees as a growing risk, Israel announced some of the toughest restrictions, including closing borders to all foreigners, four weeks after reopening for tourists.
“We are raising the red flag,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Reference-www.eleconomista.com.mx