LONDON – Eurostar trains between London, Brussels and Amsterdam will be canceled from Monday, after the Belgian government announced that its borders with the UK will close at midnight on Sunday.
The high-speed train operator said on Sunday that trains will continue to run on the London-Paris route.
The Belgian government has said it will review its position in 24 hours. Eurostar said they are waiting for further details from relevant governments on how travel restrictions will be enforced.
European countries, including the Netherlands, Austria and Italy, said on Sunday they would halt flights from the UK hours after the UK government imposed tough new coronavirus restrictions on large parts of southern England to curb what officials described as a fast-moving new tribe of the virus.
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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
– European countries stop British flights, for fear of the new coronavirus variant.
– Asia today: Outbreak is growing in Sydney’s beach areas; Thais are lining up for tests.
– A wave of ‘new poor’ associated with closed restaurants and hotels struggling amid the outbreak of Italy.
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HERE’S WHAT ELSE HAPPENS:
ROME – The Italian Foreign Minister announced on Sunday that Italy is suspending flights from Britain “to protect Italians” against the new coronavirus variant.
Luigi Di Maio tweeted that the government was preparing a measure that would block flights. It was not immediately clear when it would take effect.
Italian media reports indicate that on Sunday about two dozen flights are scheduled in Italy, most in the northern region of Lombardy, but also Veneto and Lazio, including Venice and Rome respectively.
More than 327,000 Italian citizens are registered as living in Great Britain, with an unofficial total of a whopping 700,000. Sunday is the last day Italians will be able to travel from one region to another before the Christmas holidays, due to a new partial lockdown imposed by the government to prevent another wave of infections.
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BANGKOK – Thousands of people lined up for coronavirus tests in a province near Bangkok on Sunday as Thai authorities tried to contain an outbreak that infected nearly 700 people.
Lines of mostly migrant workers stretched for about 100 meters at one site in Mahachai in Samut Sakhon Province, while health officials in mobile units methodically took nasal swabs.
There were a total of three sites in the area. Nearby, barbed wire and police guards blocked access to one of Thailand’s largest fish markets and its associated housing complex, the epicenter of the new cluster.
Thailand’s disease control department said on Sunday that they had found 141 more cases linked to the market outbreak. On Saturday, the department reported 548 cases, the largest daily peak in Thailand.
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PRAGUE – The Czech Republic imposes restrictions on travel from Britain after the discovery of a new, reportedly highly contagious form of coronavirus in southern England.
The Czech Ministry of Health says that given the risk associated with the new variant confirmed in Britain, all people arriving in the country who have spent at least 24 hours on British soil in the past two weeks should be isolated.
The ministry says they should remain in isolation for 10 days unless tested negative by a PCR test, five to seven days in their self-isolation.
It says that the measure aimed at increasing public safety will take effect on Sunday.
Belgium and the Netherlands have started banning flights from the UK in response to tougher measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday in London and surrounding areas, and Germany, the Czech neighbor’s neighbor, is considering doing the same.
Johnson said a rapidly evolving new variant of the virus, which is 70% more transmissible than existing strains, appears to be causing the rapid spread of new infections in London and southern England.
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ISLAMABAD – Pakistan’s Planning Minister, who also heads the National Coronavirus Control Body, tested positive and went home in isolation when federal authorities reported an additional 80 new deaths and 3,297 cases of COVID-19 in the past 24 hours on Sunday.
Asad Umar announced his isolation on Saturday due to the virus. Umar called on his countrymen to adhere to precautions of physical distance and to wear face masks at all times in public or at people’s gatherings. But it is noted that in this country of 22 million people, people rarely follow the rules to avoid COVID-19.
Authorities remain wholly or partially locked up in many neighborhoods across the country. With new deaths, the country reached a total of 9,330, while the number of people affected is now 457,288. Pakistan is likely to receive vaccination by the end of February and will begin vaccination in March, with priority given to primary care workers and the elderly.
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BERLIN – Germany is considering restricting flights from Britain to ensure that a new, reportedly highly contagious strain of the coronavirus sweeping through southern England does not spread to Germany, dpa news agency reported on Sunday.
A senior German government official told DPA that restrictions on flights from Britain are a “serious option.”
Belgium and the Netherlands have started banning flights from the UK in response to tougher measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday in London and surrounding areas.
Johnson said a rapidly evolving new variant of the virus, which is 70% more transmissible than existing strains, appears to be causing the rapid spread of new infections in London and southern England.
The German government, which holds the rotating presidency of the EU, is in close contact with its European neighbors about the development of the situation, Dpa reported.
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BRUSSELS – Belgium, along with the Netherlands, has banned flights from the UK and also banned rail connections in an effort to ensure that a new strain of coronavirus sweeping through southern England doesn’t spread across its territory.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said on Sunday that he issued the order for 24 hours from midnight “as a precaution”.
“There are a lot of questions about this new mutation and if there isn’t one on the mainland yet,” he said. He hoped to have more clarity from Tuesday.
In any case, the Netherlands prohibits flights from the UK for the rest of the year.
Both Belgium and the Netherlands responded on Saturday to stricter measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday in London and the surrounding area.
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AMSTERDAM – The Netherlands is banning flights from the UK at least for the rest of the year in an effort to stop a new strain of coronavirus sweeping through southern England from reaching its shores.
The ban went into effect Sunday morning and the government said it was responding to tougher measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London and surrounding areas on Saturday. The Netherlands said it will “review with other countries of the European Union the possibilities of curbing imports of the virus from the United Kingdom”.
Johnson said a rapidly evolving new variant of the virus, which is 70% more transmissible than existing strains, appears to be causing the rapid spread of new infections in London and southern England.
“There is no indication that it is more deadly or causes more serious disease,” the prime minister stressed, or that vaccines will be less effective against it.
The Dutch government already strongly advises its citizens not to travel unless absolutely necessary.
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JERUSALEM – Israel began its coronavirus vaccination campaign on Sunday, aiming to vaccinate about 60,000 people a day in an effort to eradicate the disease that is re-emerging in the population.
The country will immunize health workers first, followed by the elderly, high-risk Israelis, and people over 60. Israel says that for much of the country’s 9 million people, it has received adequate doses from both Pfizer and Moderna, whose vaccines US authorities approved for emergency use this week.
Polls show that many Israelis are reluctant to receive shots right away, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would set a “personal example” and insisted on being the first Israeli to be vaccinated. He received the recording Saturday night.
Netanyahu called it an “exciting moment” that would set Israel on the path to return to its normal routines. The country’s health minister was also given a vaccination shot.
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SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea has registered more than 1,000 new coronavirus cases for the fifth consecutive day, putting pressure on authorities to enforce the strictest distance requirements that would further hurt the economy.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency says it has found 1,097 additional cases in the last 24 hours, the highest daily figure since the start of the pandemic. That brings the national workload to 49,665, including 674 deaths.
About 70% of new cases come from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which was at the center of a viral resurgence.
The pace of the spread already meets the conditions set by the government to bring the rules for social distancing to the highest level. But officials were reluctant to go ahead with the measure over concerns about the economy. The new steps are to ban gatherings of more than 10 people and shut down hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses.
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SYDNEY – The outbreak in Sydney’s northern suburbs has grown to 70 cases with a further 30 in the past 24 hours, and authorities say they may never be able to trace the source.
As the numbers rise, New South Wales Prime Minister Gladys Berejiklian said on Sunday that there is no evidence of massive seeding outside the northern beach community. However, a new list of cases shows that the virus had spread to greater Sydney and other parts of the state.
The government has imposed a lockdown in the area until Wednesday. Residents are only allowed to leave their homes for five basic reasons, including medical care, exercise, grocery shopping, work, or for compassionate care reasons.
Kerry Chant, the state’s chief health officer, said contact investigators should not find a patient zero just yet, but an extensive investigation is underway.
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