The U.K. plans new measures to combat the omicron coronavirus variant, including PCR tests for travelers and ramping up mask-wearing.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the measures at a news conference alongside his chief medical officers.
Javid said the two confirmed cases are self-isolating alongside their households while contact tracing and targeted testing takes place. He also added four more countries — Angola, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia — onto the country’s travel red list from Sunday. Six others — Botswana, Eswatini , Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe — were added Friday. That means anyone permitted to arrive from those destinations will have to quarantine.
Many countries have slapped restrictions on various southern African countries over the past couple of days including Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Iran, Japan, Thailand and the United States, in response to warnings over the transmissability of the new variant — against the advice of the World Health Organization.
Meanwhile, a German official said that there’s a “very high probability” that the omicron variant has already arrived in the country. Nearly two years on since the start of the pandemic that has claimed more than 5 million lives around the world, countries are on high alert.has alarmed health professionals even though there was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease.
He added that it is “extremely unlikely that a reboot of a pandemic in a vaccinated population like we saw last year is going to happen.”
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