More Travel Restrictions as Omicron Variant Detected in Europe, Mideast – Africa News Wire za.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from za.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Dutch health authorities said Saturday the new Omicron strain of Covid-19 was "probably" among some of the 61 passengers who tested positive after arriving on two flights from South Africa. The cases more than one tenth of the 600 people on the two planes were quarantined in a hotel near Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, one of Europe's biggest international air travel hubs.
By Costas Pitas, Madeline Chambers and Toby Sterling LONDON/BERLIN/AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Britain, Germany and Italy detected cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant on Saturday and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new steps to contain the virus, while more nations imposed restrictions on travel from southern Africa. The discovery of the variant has sparked global concern, a wave of travel bans or curbs and a sell-off on financial markets on Friday as investors worried that Omicron could stall a global recovery from the nearly two-year pandemic. Israel said it would ban the entry of all foreigners into the country and reintroduce counter-terrorism phone-tracking technology to contain the spread of the variant. The two linked cases of Omicron detected in Britain were connected to travel to southern Africa, British health minister Sajid Javid said. Johnson laid out measures that included stricter testing rules for people arriving in the country but that stopped short of