Britain's Health Secretary Sajid Javid speaks during a press conference at the Prime Minister's Office.
The United Kingdom is temporarily suspending flights from six countries because of a new variant of Covid that has spread in South Africa.
Hours after the World Health Organization gave a briefing on the new variant, Sajid Javid, the U.K.'s secretary of state for health and social care, made the announcement. The organization called for a meeting on Friday to study the variant, which has been found in small numbers in South Africa.
We need more data but we are taking precautions now. From noon tomorrow, six African countries will be added to the red list, flights will be temporarily banned, and UK travellers will have to be scurried.
The countries of South Africa, as well as the other countries, are included in the new restrictions, according to The Guardian.
The World Health Organization is holding a meeting Friday to discuss the new variant of vaccines.
According to the WHO, the variant has been found in small numbers in South Africa. The variant has spread quickly through the province, which has the largest city of Johannesburg.
The variant has been found in Hong Kong and Botswana, according to South Africa's Minister of Health.
We don't know a lot about this. We know that this variant has a large number of changes. The WHO technical lead on Covid-19 said in a Q&A that it can have an impact on how the virus behaves.
The variant has been detected in countries with high levels of infections. In Europe, Austria and Italy have imposed new restrictions to try to slow the spread of the virus.
Scientists in South Africa have detected more than 30 different variations of the new variant, raising concern that it could possibly better evade the protection created by vaccines and prior infections.
The spread of Covid has been slowed by restrictions on flights or total travel. The U.K. was one of 33 countries that the U.S. lifted its travel ban from.
