— over concerns of COVID-19 variant in Brazil
FROM January 15, the United Kingdom (UK) has placed a ban on travellers through or from Guyana and all other countries in South America, Portugal and Cape Verde amid growing concerns over the new variant of COVID-19 identified in Brazil.
The UK Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps, made this announcement of the travel ban on Thursday via his Twitter profile. He explained that this measure was being adopted to reduce the risk of the UK importing infections.
“This measure does not apply to British and Irish Nationals and the third country nationals with residence rights but passengers returning from these destinations must isolate for TEN DAYS along with their households,” the Transport Secretary announced.
A new variant of COVID-19 was discovered in the UK late last year, after genomic sequencing was conducted on a number of samples. This variant is reportedly more transmissible but it does not seem to be more deadly.
The ‘UK variant’ prompted many countries to institute travel bans on persons travelling from that country. In the Caribbean, Jamaica was among the few countries to institute such a ban but that country has since recorded four cases of the UK variant. Guyana has not imposed any such travel ban.
Variants have also been detected in South Africa and Brazil. Now, however, the UK has opted to protect its citizens from the importation of any additional strains. The country previously imposed a ban on direct flights from South Africa and instituted restrictions on flights to the country.
According to the BBC, it is not unexpected that new variants have developed since all viruses mutate as they make new copies of themselves to spread and thrive
“It’s suspected that the UK, South Africa and Brazil variants could be much more contagious or easy to catch than earlier versions. All three have undergone changes to their spike protein – this is the part of the virus which attaches to human cells. As a result, these variants seem to be better at infecting cells and spreading,” the BBC noted.
The Caribbean Public Health Agency (CARPHA) has already flagged the UK and South Africa variants and reported that there is a “very high” risk of Caribbean countries importing these variants. The agency has not yet flagged the ‘Brazil’ variant, but it is expected to do so shortly.
