The European Commission is calling for an emergency shutdown of air traffic from southern Africa due to concerns about the discovered coronavirusvariant B.1.1.529. A growing number of Member States have already imposed an entry ban for travelers from South Africa, the country where the new mutation was first identified, this morning.
The emergency shutdown of air traffic proposed by the committee will be submitted to the member states during the day, chairman von der Leyen said on Twitter. It appears to be a total ban on at least passenger flights from the south of Africa, but the details of the plan are not yet known.
Somewhere in the coming days, a crisis meeting is expected from the member states to streamline the policy. But the EU countries are free to introduce travel bans themselves; ultimately this decision is always up to the Member States themselves. So has the cabinet decided that from 12 noon there is a ban on flights from southern Africa to the Netherlands.
Italy, Czech Republic and Germany
In addition, Italy and the Czech Republic have also announced that they will ban travelers from Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. This concerns people who have been in these African countries in the past fourteen days.
Tonight, an entry ban for travelers from South Africa will also come into effect in Germany. Only people with a German passport will soon be allowed to fly back from South Africa. They must be quarantined for 14 days on arrival, regardless of whether the passengers have been vaccinated, Health Minister Spahn reports.
Since the start of the pandemic, the EU has banned entry to high-risk countries outside Europe, including South Africa. But there are several exceptions to this, for example for business travel. on this page find the list of countries that the EU considers safe.
‘Most significant variant to date’
Yesterday, Israel and the United Kingdom already imposed a travel ban on travelers from a number of countries in southern Africa. “This is the most significant variant we have encountered so far,” British Medical Service deputy chief Jenny Harries said in a statement.
In her opinion, thorough research should be carried out as soon as possible into the worrying mutation, which appears to be more contagious than the now dominant delta variant.
‘Entry ban is hasty’
The variant has so far been identified in South Africa, Botswana, Israel and Hong Kong. Scientists expect that B.1.1.529 has now spread across all eight provinces of South Africa.
According to the South African foreign minister, the British travel ban was a hasty decision. The minister fears the economic damage and points out that much is still unclear about B.1.1.529.
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