EU ambassadors to carry emergency meeting on UK new virus strain
21 December, 2020
EU ambassadors will hold an emergency meeting in Brussels on Monday on travel restrictions to Britain after a fresh coronavirus strain emerged there that's regarded as very infectious.
Several EU countries, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy and holland have announced the suspension of air links, and occasionally rail and ferry links, with the UK.
Generally, the bans were effective from 11pm on Sunday and were to last a day or two as a precaution as the threat of the brand new strain was evaluated and a coordinated response was exercised.
An EU official said ambassadors from the 27 member states would meet Monday under the bloc's integrated political crisis response mechanism made to swiftly respond to crises. They might look at measures such as flight bans and the application of PCR coronavirus testing on travellers coming from Britain.
The meeting employs British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Saturday that he was imposing a severe lockdown on London and far of the south east as a result of the brand new virus variant.
Mr Johnson said the variant could be up to 70 per cent more infectious, predicated on preliminary data showing it had become the prevalent strain in the administrative centre and that case numbers were rising despite boosted restrictions.
He and government medical officials said there were no indications the brand new variant was any longer deadly or immune to vaccines that are starting to be used.
WHO in 'close connection with UK officials over virus variant'
The World Health Organisation said it had been analysing Britain's data to see if its the runaway infection figures were the result of a far more potent strain. The coronavirus has became many different variants as it has spread all over the world - an expected consequence of getting together with different hosts with different biological responses.
No mutated virus has up to now been proven to become more virulent than others or able to easily overcome the barriers, such as for example social distancing, facemasks and frequent hand-washing, which are recommended.
“What we understand is that it does have increased transmissibility, when it comes to its capability to spread,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19. Studies are under way to raised know how fast it spreads and and whether “it’s linked to the variant itself, or a combo of factors with behaviour,” she added.
She said any risk of strain had also been discovered in Denmark, holland and Australia, where there was one case that didn’t spread further. “The longer this virus spreads, the more opportunities it has to change,” she said. “So we should do everything we are able to right now to avoid spread.”
Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said officials are concerned about the new variant because it contained 23 different changes, “an unusually large number of variants” affecting how the virus binds to and enters cells in the body.
Officials aren’t certain whether it started in the UK, Mr Vallance added. But by December, he said it had been causing over 60 % of infections in London.
US looking 'very carefully' at new virus variant
US authorities want "very carefully" in to the virus variant spreading in britain, top health officials said on Sunday, while indicating that a ban on UK travel was not currently in the cards.
Moncef Slaoui, chief advisor to the government's Operation Warp Speed vaccine program, told CNN's "State of the Union" that US officials "have no idea yet" if the variant exists in the country.
"We are, of course... looking meticulously into this," including at the National Institutes of Health insurance and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, he said. Right now, he said, no strain of the virus appears to be resistant to the vaccines available.
"This particular variant in the UK, I think, is very unlikely to have escaped the vaccine immunity," Mr Slaoui said.
"I don't believe there's any reason behind alarm right now," agreed Admiral Brett Giroir, the US official overseeing coronavirus testing, when asked about the brand new variant on ABC's "The Week."
Asked whether the United States was more likely to follow the exemplory case of European countries that contain suspended flights from the uk, Mr Giroir replied: "I really don't believe we need to do this yet."
Nearly eight million more Covid-19 vaccine doses are to ship over the USA on Monday, Mr Slaoui told CNN. This is made up of two million of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 5.9 million of the Moderna shot that was approved on Friday.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com