Fears Over Mutated Covid Mink Virus Lead To Denmark Flight Ban



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Flights between Denmark and the UK were banned on Friday night to prevent the spread of a mutated Covid mink virus that scientists fear could counteract the effectiveness of a vaccine.

The flight ban is the first in the UK since the start of the pandemic and follows the discovery of a mutated form of coronavirus, which can spread to humans, on Danish mink farms.

Health officials are expected to track and screen some 3,000 people who flew to the UK from Denmark last week via the travel corridor opened by the Department for Transport (DfT) on October 25. The DfT ordered the corridor closed at 4 am on Friday.

Anyone arriving or traveling through Denmark is expected to self-quarantine for 14 days, although it was unclear on Friday night if people who had returned from Denmark would also be asked to isolate themselves.

The move came when it was learned that another 355 people had died in the UK within 28 days of testing positive for Covid-19 as of Friday. The government said that, as of 9am on Friday, there were another 23,287 laboratory-confirmed cases in the UK.

A massive testing program was launched in Liverpool on Friday and Boris Johnson announced that there would be three other, as yet unnamed cities across the country where the program will soon be rolled out.

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