The United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, announced to close all travel corridors from Monday morning to protect against the new variant of the coronavirus. Anybody entering the country from overseas will need to show a negative COVID-19 test before setting off.
Repeatedly warned to close down travel from Brazil (& Portugal) he sat on it until a Brazil variant had been identified in the UK. NOW he shuts down all UK travel corridors. Even then it won’t start until Monday. EVERY TIME he gambles until its too late & then he acts. Shameful!
— Andrew 🏴😷💙 (@_Annibyniaeth) January 15, 2021
The decision comes following the ban on travelers from Portugal and South America came into execution on Friday over worries about a new variant of the virus identified in Brazil. The Prime Minister said the new guidelines would stay until at least 15th February. An additional 1280 people with COVID-19 died in the country within twenty-eight days of a positive virus test, taking the total number of deaths to around 87,300.
On Friday, the latest figures of the government also showed another 55,770 new cases reported – up from 48,670 the previous day. According to the statistics from Johns Hopkins University, until now, over two million people across the world lost their lives amid the deadly virus since its start. Johnson said that it becomes necessary to take some extra measures after the surge in deaths and new cases.
The U.K. Travel Corridors will close from Monday 04:00 GMT
All travel corridors in the U.K. will close from 04:00 GMT on Monday. Afterward, arrivals to the country will need to quarantine for over ten days unless they test negative for the virus after five days. Travel corridors were previously introduced in the summer to allow people traveling from some countries with a low number of coronavirus cases to come without having to quarantine to arrival in the country.
Tim Alderslade, the Chief Executive, said that travel corridors were a base for the industry past summer, but things change, and it is doubtless that it is a severe health emergency. Sir Keir Starmer, the labor leader, expressed it as the right step but called the decision timing slow again, adding that the people would think, why didn’t this happen before on earth.
More patients in the hospital now across the United Kingdom than in the first wave
Here below is the number of patients in hospital with COVID-19 by date
Source: Gov.uk dashboard
The prime minister of the U.K. warned that the National Health Service faced unexpected pressures, having had the maximum number of hospital admissions on one day of the coronavirus earlier this week. He said that 4134 new admissions reported on Tuesday, while the United Kingdom currently facing over thirty thousand pandemic patients in hospitals.
Furthermore, Boris Johnson said that once the most susceptible viral disease vaccinated by mid-February, his government would think about what steps it could take to relax the restrictions. The country is currently under a general lockdown, which restricts people to stay at home and can only go for some reasons like exercise, food shopping, or work if they can’t do so from home. Likewise, the same measures are active across much of Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Early Signs daily cases may be falling
Daily confirmed COVID-19 cases by date reported
Professor Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer of England, said that the restrictions would require to lifted slowly by testing what works, and then if that policy works, they proceed towards the next step. According to Chris, the peak of people admitting to the hospital might be the next week to ten days for most places, but they hope the peak of contaminations already happened in the east, south-east and London.
Easy to adjust vaccines of the pandemic
A ban on people from Portugal, South America, and Cape Verde entering the United Kingdom came into force on Friday morning due to a new variant, a possibly more infectious variant of COVID-19 associated with Brazil. The chief scientific adviser of the government, Sir Patrick Vallance, told the reporters that some of the new variants might able to get around the coronavirus vaccines, but it really quite easy to adjust the vaccines to handle the transformations in the virus.
New variants of the virus causing worries and previously identified in South Africa and England, with several countries striking restrictions on arrivals from both countries. Public Health England stated a total of thirty-five gnomically confirmed and twelve genomically possible cases of the coronavirus variant, which originated in South Africa and identified in the United Kingdom as of 14th January.
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