Virus fears lead to border closures
US to ban entry to most non-us citizens who have been in Britain, Brazil, Ireland
WASHINGTON: Border restrictions were being tightened around the world on Monday in the face of an unrelenting coronavirus threat, after a weekend in which anger at social distancing rules bubbled over into fiery clashes in the Netherlands.
The US is set to join France, Israel and Sweden in pulling up the drawbridge to arrivals, with special concern about new strains of the virus originating from Britain and South Africa.
Paris’s main international airport has started implementing new rules on tests for EU arrivals. New Zealand’s first case in the community for more than two months has been identified as the more contagious South African variant, prompting Australia to suspend quarantine-free travel from the neighbouring country for at least 72 hours.
In Washington, President Joe Biden will reimpose a ban on most non-us citizens who have been in Britain, Brazil, Ireland and much of Europe, as well as adding South Africa to the list, a senior White House official said.
Since it emerged in late 2019, Covid-19 has killed more than 2.1 million people, with total cases fast approaching 100 million.
On Sunday, France started demanding a negative PCR test for arrivals by sea and air from European Union neighbours.
Sweden said it would prohibit entry from neighbouring Norway for three weeks, after cases of the more infectious British strain were detected in Oslo.
And in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country was “closing the skies hermetically, except for rare exceptions” to both arrivals and departures for a week.
But government action to curtail the virus’ spread still faces stiff opposition from some citizens. Protests against a coronavirus curfew in the Netherlands degenerated into clashes with police and looting in cities across the country Sunday.
Police used water cannon and dogs in Amsterdam, public television NOS reported, after hundreds gathered to protest the 9pm-4:30 am curfew, set to last until February 10.
Vaccine works against new strains: Moderna
Moderna said on Monday its Covid-19 vaccine produced virusneutralising antibodies in laboratory tests against new coronavirus variants found in the UK and South Africa.
A two-dose regimen of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine is expected to be protective against emerging strains detected to date, the company said. Moderna, however, said it would test a vaccine booster against the South Africa variant in pre-clinical trials to see if that would be more effective in boosting antibodies against the variant and other future variants.
Meanwhile, US drug giant Merck & Co., which has a long history of successfully developing vaccines, is discontinuing development of its two experimental vaccines after early trial data showed they failed to generate immune responses comparable to a natural infection or existing vaccines.
Trial results from Merck’s V590 and V591 were “disappointing, and a bit of a surprise,” said Nick Kartsonis, senior vice president of clinical research for infectious diseases and vaccine.
Scientists say the only way out of the pandemic is largescale vaccinations, but the rollout has stuttered in many places.
Egypt began its programme, with a doctor and a nurse getting the Chinese-made Sinopharm jab, while, the Australian medical regulator formally approved the Pfizer vaccine, with the first doses expected to be administered in late February.