All these countries moving so swiftly in red listing us, is this variant THAT bad?
That's what they want to investigate
Flights from six countries will be banned as officials review travel measures after scientists voice concern over variant
www.theguardian.com
Ewan Birney, the deputy director general of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory and a member of Spi-M, which advises the UK government, called for urgent “code red” – or “red list-type” – travel restrictions to be imposed on southern Africa while the variant’s transmissibility is investigated, saying it posed a risk of worsening the pandemic.
He urged countries not to repeat the mistake of failing to act quickly. “What we’ve learned from the other situations like this – some have turned out OK and some haven’t – is that whilst we’re [investigating] you have to be reasonably paranoid,” he said.
The new variant was identified after a surge of cases in Gauteng, an urban area containing Pretoria and Johannesburg. Initially the cluster of cases, centred on a university, was assumed to be because of an increase in socialising.
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