MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 22nd December, 2020) The Netherlands is banning flights from South Africa because of the new strain of the coronavirus that appears to spread far more rapidly than other variants, the Dutch Ministry of of Foreign Affairs has announced.
"To prevent the spread of a contagious variant of Covid-19 in the Netherlands, the Dutch government decided to ban all passenger flights from South Africa as of now," the ministry said on Twitter late on Monday.
On Sunday, the Dutch government said it was banning flights from the United Kingdom starting December 20 and until January 1, 2021, at the latest. According to government data, the Netherlands recorded at least one case of the new coronavirus strain in early December, the same variant as that observed in the UK.
On Saturday, UK health officials announced that the country had identified a new variant of the coronavirus that is 70 percent more transmissible than other Sars-Cov-2 virus strains.
The UK government practically locked down parts of the country, including London, after admitting that more than half of all new COVID-19 cases had been caused by the new strain. Many countries have suspended passenger travel to and from the United Kingdom in a bid to prevent the import of the new virus strain.
The new coronavirus variant, which infects more easily but does not appear to be more deadly or pose any concerns for vaccines, has also been detected in Denmark, South Africa and Australia.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised countries to independently assess the risk of spillover of the new strain of coronavirus and make decisions on whether to suspend air traffic, WHO representative to Russia, Melita Vujnovic said on Monday.
