UK Bans Arrivals From South American Countries, Portugal

The UK government has announced its decision to ban arrivals from more than a dozen South American countries, and as well as Portugal starting from Friday, after the detection of a new coronavirus variant.

Taking to Twitter on Thursday, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said: "I've taken the urgent decision to ban arrivals from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Cape Verde, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela from tomorrow at 4 a.m. following evidence of a new variant in Brazil.

"Travel from Portugal to the UK will also be suspended given its strong travel links with Brazil, acting as another way to reduce the risk of importing infections. However, there is an exemption for hauliers traveling from Portugal (only), to allow transport of essential goods.

"This measure does not apply to British and Irish Nationals and third-country nationals with residence rights -- but passengers returning from these destinations must self-isolate for TEN days along with their households."

The new ban was announced after a meeting of senior UK government officials on Thursday.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday told MPs in the House of Commons, the lower house of Parliament, that the government was "concerned" about the new virus variant detected in Brazil, reports Xinhua news agency.

"We already have tough measures to protect this country from new infections coming in from abroad," he said.

In December 2020, the UK had suspended flights from South Africa after the discovery of a new and concerning variant in the continent.

Johnson said there were "lots of questions" over the latest variant, including whether it is resistant to Covid vaccines.

At present, experts are uncertain how effective existing vaccines will be against the new variant, the Evening Standard newspaper reported.

Patrick Vallance, the UK government's top scientist, told ITV that the new variant contains "a change of the genetic code, at position 484, and that changes a part of the protein, it changes a bit of a shape of the protein".

He said that there is no evidence new variants are more deadly.

The latest development came as another 1,564 have died within 28 days of a positive test, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began in the country, according to official figures released.

The total number of coronavirus deaths in the country now stands at 86,163, the data showed.

Another 47,525 people in have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total ninfection tally in the country to 3,269,757, the figures showed.

England is currently under the third national lockdown since the outbreak of the pandemic in the country.

Similar restriction measures are also in place in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.