LONDON – Eurostar trains between London, Brussels and Amsterdam are being canceled from Monday after the Belgian government announced the closure of borders with the UK at midnight on Sunday.
The high-speed train operator said on Sunday that the train would continue on the route from London to Paris.
The Belgian government has said it will review the situation within 24 hours. Eurostar said it was awaiting further details from concerned governments on how travel restrictions would be enforced.
European countries, including the Netherlands, Austria and Italy, said on Sunday that they had imposed a strict new coronavirus ban just hours after the British government imposed new coronavirus restrictions on large areas of southern England.
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BREAK out the virus:
– European countries block flights to the UK, Afraid of new coronavirus variables.
– Asia Today: Eruption in Sydney’s beach suburb; Line for Thais tests.
– The number of ‘new poor’ people attached to closed rest restaurants, renters and hotels Struggling between the outbreaks of Italy.
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Follow AP coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic And https://apnews.com/UndersistancetheOutbreak
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Here is what happened:
ROME – Italy’s foreign minister announced on Sunday that Italy was suspending flights from Britain to “save the Italian people” from a new coronavirus variant.
Luigi Di Mayo tweeted that the government was preparing a move to block flights. It was not immediately clear when it would be implemented.
Italian media reports indicate that about two dozen flights are due to arrive in Italy on Sunday, mostly in the northern region of Lombardy, also in Veneto and Lazio, including Venice and Rome.
Britain: More than 7,000 Italians are registered to live in Britain, with an unofficial total of 700,000,000. Sunday is the last day that Italians can travel from one region to another before the Christmas holidays, due to a new partial lockdown imposed by the government to prevent a new surge in infections.
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BANGKOK – Thousands of people stood for coronavirus testing in a province near Bangkok on Sunday as Thai authorities reported an outbreak of the disease that infected about 700 people.
In Mahachai alone in the province of Samudra Sakhon, the lines of migrated workers were about 100 meters long in one place, as the health officers of the mobile unit systematically carry out nasal reflexes.
There were a total of three locations in the area. Nearby, razor wire and police guards blocked access to one of Thailand’s largest seafood markets and the adjacent housing complex, the center of a new cluster.
Thailand’s disease control department said on Sunday that it had found 141 more cases of market outbreaks. On Saturday, the department reported 548 cases, the largest daily spike in Thailand.
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PRAGUE – The Czech Republic is imposing travel bans on Britain following the discovery of a new, allegedly highly contagious strain of coronavirus in southern England.
The Czech health ministry says all those arriving in the country have spent at least 24 hours in the British territory in the past two weeks, given the risk associated with the new variant in Britain.
The ministry says they will have to be isolated for 10 days until they are tested negatively in their self-isolation for five to seven days by PCR testing.
He says he makes it clear who is aiming to increase public safety becomes effective on Sunday.
Belgium and the Netherlands began banning flights from the UK in response to tough measures imposed on London and surrounding areas on Saturday by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Czech neighbor Germany on Saturday.
Johnson said a fast-moving new form of transmissible virus, which is 70% more than the current strain, is spreading new infections rapidly in London and the south of England.
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ISLAMABAD – The planning minister, who heads Pakistan’s National Coronavirus Control, was positively tested and left home alone as federal authorities recorded another 80 new deaths and 3,297 cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours on Sunday.
Assad Umair announced his separation on Saturday due to the virus. Umair appealed to fellow countrymen to wear physical distance precautions and wear face masks when in public or when people gather. But it is being observed that in this country of 22 million people, people rarely follow the rules to avoid COVID-19.
Authorities partly in many neighborhoods across the country. Or the fully locked key continues unlocked. With the new death the number of the country has reached 9330 while the number of affected is now 457288. Pakistan is expected to be vaccinated by the end of February and vaccinations will begin in March, with priority given to health workers and the elderly.
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BERLIN – Germany is considering limiting flights from Britain so that the new, allegedly highly contagious strain of the coronavirus that has spread to southern England does not spread to Germany.
A top German government official said the ban on flights from Britain was a “serious option”.
Belgium and the Netherlands began banning flights from the UK in response to tough measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in London and surrounding areas on Saturday.
Johnson said the fast-paced new way of transmitting the virus, which is 70% more than the current strain, led to the rapid spread of new infections in London and the south of England.
The German government, which has a rotating EU president, is in close contact with its European neighbors over the developing situation, the DPA reported.
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BRUSSELS – Belgium has joined the Netherlands to ban flights from the UK and has also banned railway connections to ensure a new strain of coronavirus spread in southern England does not spread to its territory.
Belgian Prime Minister Alexander de Crow said on Sunday that they were issuing the order “out of caution” for 24 hours starting at midnight.
“There are a lot of questions about this new change and if it’s not already on mainland,” he said. He hoped for more clarity by Tuesday.
The Netherlands has banned flights from the UK for at least the rest of the year.
Both Belgium and the Netherlands were reacting to the tough measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday in London and surrounding areas.
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AMSTERDAM – The Netherlands has banned flights from the UK for at least the rest of the year to ensure a new strain of coronavirus spread across southern England does not reach its shores.
The ban came into effect on Sunday morning and the government said it was responding to tough measures imposed by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in and around London on Saturday. The Netherlands said it would evaluate the possibility that the United Kingdom, along with other EU countries, could include imports of the virus.
Johnson said a fast-moving new form of transmissible virus, which is 70% more than the current strain, is spreading new infections rapidly in London and the south of England.
The prime minister stressed that “there is no evidence to indicate that it is more fatal or cause a more serious illness, or that the vaccine will be less effective.”
The Dutch government already strongly advises its citizens not to travel unless absolutely necessary.
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JERUSALEM – Israel on Sunday launched its coronavirus inoculation drive, which aims to vaccinate about 60,000 people a day to eradicate the once-growing disease in its population.
Health workers in the country will be vaccinated first, followed by the elderly, high-risk Israelis and those over 60. Israel says it has received enough doses for the 9 million people in both Pfizer and Moderna, whose vaccines are available in the U.S. Officials approved the use of the emergency this week.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said with a public opinion poll that many Israelis were reluctant to get shot immediately, that he would set a “personal precedent” and insisted that the Israeli vaccine be the first vaccine. He got the shot on Saturday night.
Netanyahu called it a “provocative moment” that would put Israel on a path to return to its normal routine. The country’s health minister also received a vaccine shot.
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SEOUL, South Korea – More than a thousand new coronavirus cases have been reported in South Korea for the fifth day in a row, enforcing the toughest distance rules that put pressure on officials to do more damage to the economy.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency says it has received 1,097 additional cases in the past 24 hours, the daily figure since the outbreak began. Which puts the national case burden at 49,665, including 674 deaths.
About 70% of new cases come from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, which is at the heart of the viral resurgence.
The pace of spread has already met the government’s conditions for raising the rules of social distance to their highest level. But officials have been reluctant to move forward given the concerns of the economy. The new measure would ban gatherings of more than 10 people and shut down hundreds of thousands of non-essential businesses.
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SYDNEY – An additional 70 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours since the outbreak in Sydney’s North Beach suburb, and officials say they will never be able to trace the source.
While the numbers are rising, New South Wales Premier Gladys Berezclian said Sunday that there is no evidence of large-scale seed planting outside the North Coast community. However a new list of cases shows that the virus spread to large Sydney and other parts of the state.
The government has imposed a lockdown in the area till Wednesday. Residents will only be allowed to leave their home for five basic reasons, be it medical care, exercise, grocery store, work or compassionate care.
The state’s chief health officer, Carrie Chant, said contact tracers were yet to find the patient, but a detailed investigation was under way.
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https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus- Epidemic
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https://apnews.com/Unders understanding theOutbreak
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