The UK government ban on travels from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde over concerns about a new coronavirus variant recently identified in Brazil became effective on Friday, with UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps denying claims that the government had been too slow to act
LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2021) The UK government ban on travels from South America, Portugal and Cape Verde over concerns about a new coronavirus variant recently identified in Brazil became effective on Friday, with UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps denying claims that the government had been too slow to act.
"We acted extremely quickly given there are 12,000 different variants of coronavirus," Shapps told Sky news broadcaster, after insisting that the government heard about the Brazilian new strain only on Sunday, stressing that it takes a "huge amount of time in science" to sequence the genome of any virus variant.
He also said that there has not been any flight coming from Brazil in the last week.
"Even if there were, people were required in any case legally to quarantine [after coming] from Brazil," he stressed.
The travel ban includes Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guayana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela.
It also applies to Panama, Portugal - because of the European nation's strong travel links with Brazil - and the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde in West Africa.
Hauliers transporting essential goods from Portugal, as well as British and Irish nationals and foreigners with residence rights in the UK will be exempted, although they must self-isolate for 10 days along with members of their households.
