Covid variant sets UK alarm bells ringing

Atravel ban is to be imposed on six African nations due to rising concerns over a new variant of the virus which causes Covid-19 which officials have dubbed “the worst one we’ve seen so far”.

UK officials sounded the alarm last night over the B.1.1.529 variant, which has the potential to evade immunity built up by vaccination or prior infection.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the new variant identified in South Africa “may be more transmissible” than the Delta strain and “the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective”.

While no cases have been found in Britain, officials raised concern over a rapid rise in cases in South Africa. Anyone who has arrived from the country in the last 10 days will be invited to come forward and take a test by the UK Health Security Agency.

The Scottish Government later confirmed all arrivals from six countries will be required to self-isolate and take two PCR tests from midday today, while anyone arriving after 4am tomorrow will need to stay at a managed quarantine hotel. There are no direct flights from any of the countries into Scotland.

At the moment, around 500 and 700 people are travelling to the UK from South Africa each day, but it is expected this figure could increase as the festive period begins.

Mr Javid said: “The early indication we have of this variant is it may be more transmissible than the Delta variant and the vaccines that we currently have may be less effective against it.

“Now to be clear, we have not detected any of this new variant in the UK at this point in time.

“But we’ve always been clear that we will take action to protect the progress that we have made.

“So what we will be doing is from midday tomorrow we will be suspending all flights from six, southern

African countries and we will add in those countries to the travel red list. Those countries are South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Botswana. We will be requiring anyone arriving from those countries from 4am on Sunday to quarantine in hotels.

“If anyone arrives before then they should selfisolate at home and take a PCR test on day two and day eight. If anyone has arrived from any of those countries over the last 10 days, we would ask them to take PCR tests.”

Mr Javid added: “Our scientists are deeply concerned about this variant. I’m concerned, of course, that’s one of the reasons we have taken this action today.”

Only 59 confirmed cases have been identified in South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana. The variant has more than 30 mutations which could potentially make it more transmissible and evade protection given by prior infection or vaccination.

ON ALERT: Health Secretary Sajid Javid said the new variant “may be more transmissible” than the Delta strain.