Omicron Covid Variant: Japan Bans All Foreign Arrivals
LAGOS NOVEMBER 30TH (NEWSRANGERS)-Japan on Monday announced plans to ban all new foreign arrivals from Tuesday as the new Omicron COVID-19 variant spreads worldwide.
“We are taking measures with a strong sense of crisis. The ban comes into effect on Tuesday”, Prime minister, Fumio Kishida, said in a statement on Monday.
The move by Japan, which is reporting consistently low Covid-19 case numbers, comes a day after it tightened restrictions on foreigners who have recently visited Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Residents and citizens returning from any of the nine countries are required to spend 10 days in a government-designated facility upon their arrival.
The Government had earlier said it was considering reviving a blanket ban on foreign arrivals due to concerns regarding the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus.
Kishida said Japan, where more than 76% of the population is fully vaccinated, would go ahead with plans to administer booster shots from next month, beginning with older people and health workers.
Border restrictions were eased in early November, allowing students, business people and technical interns into the country as long as their sponsors took on the responsibility to monitor their movements in the country.
The new B.1.1.529 variant now tagged ‘Omicron’, was first reported to the World Health Organisation (WHO) from South Africa on Wednesday.
The WHO has categorised it as a “Variant of Concern” two days later.
The strain has so far been detected in more than a dozen countries across Europe, Africa and Asia. It has also been confirmed in North America, with cases detected in Canada.
Fears are growing that the new variant could be more transmissible or that it could reduce the effectiveness of existing vaccines, although much remains unclear.
A growing number of countries are responding with bans on travel from southern Africa.
The border closures have been criticised by South Africa’s president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who called on nations to lift the travel bans “before any further damage is done to our economies”.
The head of the World Health Organization in Africa also urged countries to follow the science rather than impose flight bans in a bid to contain the new Covid strain.
“With the Omicron variant now detected in several regions of the world, putting in place travel bans that target Africa attacks global solidarity”, said WHO regional director Matshidiso Moeti.
Meanwhile, G7 health ministers will hold an emergency meeting on Monday on the new Omicron Covid-19 variant spreading across the world and forcing border closures, as experts race to determine the level of threat posed by the new strain.
The meeting was called by G7 chair, Britain, which is among a steadily growing number of countries that have detected cases of the heavily mutated new variant.
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Posted by News Rangers
on Nov 30 2021. Filed under Health, International, National.
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