Another major European country BANS TRAVEL to and from South Africa

Unless you’re a highly important worker – or a person with homely roots in Belgium – another door has been shut on South Africans: The country became the latest territory to ban travel from India, Brazil, and South Africa on Tuesday…

Read also: Just seven countries will let South Africans visit ‘without having to quarantine’

South Africans banned from Belgium

This is down to the fact that all aforementioned countries have been hit by COVID-19 ‘variants of concern’. Prime Minister Alexander de Croo announced in a statement that South Africa would be lumped in with the ‘newer’ mutations:

“Passenger travel by air, train, boat, and bus, including transit traffic, from India, Brazil, and South Africa to Belgium will be banned. People with Belgian nationality and people who have their main residence in Belgium can return from India, Brazil, and South Africa to Belgium. They are strongly advised not to travel to these countries.”

“There will be some exceptions to the ban for essential travel by some transport workers and diplomats, but otherwise the ban will be strictly enforced. There’s only one thing to do to move towards a normal life where everyone can travel freely; and that is to vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate” | Alexander de Croo

Variant concerns force Belgians into action

Belgium has a particular reason to be concerned. Last week, the country detected some 20 Indian students positive with the Indian variant. They had arrived in mid-April on the same bus from France, after landing at Roissy airport in Paris. The COVID-19 strain found in South Africa, meanwhile, accounts for 3.7% of cases in this European nation.

The 501Y.V2 variant is seen as particularly troublesome, given that some vaccines are less effective against this particular spike protein. Although the jabs are thought to prevent severe infection and reduce the rate of deaths with the problematic mutation, the AstraZeneca shots do not appear to reduce the chance of catching COVID-19 all that much.

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— Riskline (@Riskline) April 27, 2021