Coronavirus, Omikron | Omikron variant: Several countries close their borders
Israel, Japan and the Philippines have closed the border to foreigners, while Australia is considering doing so.
The Omikron variant is being discovered in more and more places in the world, most recently in the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, the Czech Republic, Israel, Australia and the United Kingdom.
Israel has also reintroduced the controversial surveillance of mobile phones to corona patients and their contacts.
Japan reintroduces strict border controls and denies all foreign visitors access due to the new corona variant omikron, reports NTB.
The stricter entry rules, which were announced on Monday, come a few weeks after the rules were relaxed.
– Will prohibit entry
“We will ban entry for foreigners from all over the world from November 30,” said Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at a news conference.
The decision sets aside the scheme as opened to allow business travelers on short visits, foreign students and workers to enter the country.
At the weekend, Japan introduced quarantine requirements for travelers from South Africa and eight other countries. On Monday, Kishida announced that quarantine requirements will also be introduced for travelers from a further 14 countries where the virus variant has been discovered.
Philippines: Closes borders again
Last week, the Philippines announced that it would open borders to tourists, but due to the omicron variant, this decision is temporarily halted.
Tourists were allowed in from 1 December, but the risk of being admitted to the new variant in a country where most of the population is unvaccinated, led to the health authorities turning around.
Tourism is an important industry for the Philippine economy and accounted for nearly 13 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019. At that time, nearly eight million tourists visited the country. Last year, the numbers fell to 5.4 percent of GDP and 1.48 million tourists.
Just over a third of the Philippines’ 110 million inhabitants have been vaccinated.
At the same time, the Philippines has reversed a decision to open its borders to fully vaccinated tourists. Australia is also considering redoing planned easing of border crossings, while Israel has closed borders to all lenders.
Denmark is one of the countries that has detected the first cases of the omicron variant. The two who were infected traveled by plane from South Africa to Denmark.
– We can not prevent it from entering Denmark, and we can just delay and buy ourselves time, says Denmark’s Minister of Health Magnus Heunicke according to Denmark’s radio.
– Our strategy is to haul out the time
The confirmation from Denmark came on Sunday.
– It was as expected. Our strategy is to drag out the time, so we have time to get vaccinated as much as possible and get further through the winter before it really comes to Denmark, says director of Denmark’s response at the National Institute of Public Health, Statens Serum Institut.
The omicron variant of covid-19 is likely to spread worldwide, says the World Health Organization (WHO). Several countries close the borders to all foreigners.
WHO: – Very high global risk
WHO asks its 94 member countries to accelerate the vaccination of priority groups and ensure that they have adequate plans for important health services, writes Reuters.
The omicron variant will spread internationally and is likely to pose a high risk. New large increases in infection can have serious consequences in some regions, the organization said in a statement.
However, they add that there have been no previous deaths related to the omicron variant.
I am adding an organization for more research to understand the potential of the omicron variant to infect fully vaccinated individuals and those who have already had covid-19. They are waiting and more data will come over the next few weeks.
Britain is now considering expanding access to the third vaccine dose, according to the news agency AP. The Philippines, for its part, must vaccinate nine million people in three days, reports NTB.
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