WHO tackles new strains, fresh restrictions imposed

GENEVA: Global health experts gathered on Thursday to tackle new coronavirus strains blamed for a fresh surge in infections as countries including the UK and France tightened restrictions to head off a further worsening of the pandemic.

The World Health Organization (WHO) emergency committee session came as their colleagues were seeking the origins of the virus on a long-delayed mission to the pandemic ground zero in Wuhan.

Almost two million of the more than 91 million people who have caught the disease have died, but the figures are widely believed to be an underestimate.

“When you first met almost a year ago, just 557 cases of the disease we now call Covid-19 had been reported to WHO,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in his opening remarks to the emergency meeting.

Much of the planet is facing a second or third wave of infections, with populations chafing under painful and economically damaging restrictions.

Already hard-hit by a new variant at home, the UK announced on Thursday it was banning all arrivals from South America, Panama, Cape Verde and Portugal.

The step was taken over fears of importing yet another new coronavirus variant in Brazil, where the northern Amazonas state announced a 7pm to 6am curfew.

The health system has been pushed to breaking point in the state capital Manaus.

The strain, known as E484K, was detected initially in South Africa and on subsequent variants in Brazil and Japan, and it has raised greater alarm among researchers over its possible impact on immunity.

Partly over fears of new variants, France said it would impose a daily nationwide curfew at 6pm starting today and remaining in force for at least two weeks.

Most of France had been under an 8pm curfew, with some areas, especially in the hard-hit east, already under the stricter 6pm limit.

Lebanon meanwhile went into full lockdown with residents barred even from grocery shopping.

There was better news for those who have already had Covid-19, with a British study suggesting recovery can confer immunity for at least five months.

But the virus’s new strains were causing increasing worry and went under the WHO microscope in Geneva on Thursday after being logged in dozens of countries.

In China, millions of people have been locked down again to try to tame a fresh outbreak that has now claimed the country’s first reported Covid-19 death in eight months.

The death comes as a 10-strong investigation team arrived in Wuhan, where the virus emerged in late 2019.

Mission leader Peter Ben Embarek said they would enter a two-week hotel quarantine before the probe begins in earnest.