Australia said on Monday it had detected cases of the rapidly spreading new strain of coronavirus identified in the UK.
Two travelers from the UK to Australia’s New South Wales state were found to carry the mutated variant of the virus, which Britain says could be up to 70 percent more infectious. Both are in hotel quarantine and the recent surge in infections in Sydney is unrelated to this, authorities said.
However, Australian Health Minister Greg Hunt said there are no plans to follow other countries to halt flights from the UK.
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Chase told reporters Monday that Australia’s housing isolation framework, under which global appearances fall, requires an observed 14-day isolation in compromised inns, implying that Australia would not be doing the same.
“Something in Europe is that they have not received a [hotel quarantine] frame, “Hunt said.
Australian health authorities said a strain of the virus in northeast Sydney matched that of a traveler from the United States, but how it got from the airport to the community was puzzling.
See also: Countries that have blocked travel from the UK after the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus
Much is unknown about the strain, but experts said current vaccines should still be effective against it.
Countries around the world have started banning flights and travelers from Britain, as London said on Sunday that the spread of a new, more infectious strain of coronavirus was now “out of control”, stoking fear among many of that a resurgence could be seen in top-level cases. in parts of the world if the new variant of COVID-19 is not stopped.
Earlier, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned that the new strain of the coronavirus is “out of control” and suggested that parts of England will be trapped in the new higher level of restrictions until a vaccine is deployed.
Emerging scientific evidence suggests that the new variant, which according to Hancock also appeared in Australia and continental Europe, may spread significantly faster than previous strains in circulation and is behind the rise in infections in recent days.
The government had initially announced an easing of restrictions to allow families to reunite over Christmas, but changed its plans after it came forward last week with a dire analysis of the new strain that is spreading across southeast of England.
Britain has been severely affected by the pandemic, with more than 67,000 deaths of those testing positive for the virus.
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