New Variant of COVID Sparks Global Travel Restrictions and Sends Stocks and Oil Prices Lower

New Variant of COVID Sparks Global Travel Restrictions and Sends Stocks and Oil Prices Lower

The United Kingdom has taken immediate action as there are growing concerns about a new variant of COVID first detected in Africa.

The variant has been flagged by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern.

This variant is called B.1.1.529 until a Greek letter is assigned to it by the World Health Organization, and carries an unusually large number of mutations and is “clearly very different” from previous COVID variants, Tulio de Oliveira, a bio-informatics professor who runs gene-sequencing institutions at two South African universities, said at a briefing on Thursday.

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It appears that vaccines developed to data are ineffective against this emerging variant.

Dr. Michael Fine, the former Rhode Island Director of Health said, “The jury is still out on the transmissibility of B.1.1.529, but it looks worrisome, and the recent spike in cases in South Africa concerning.”

Other variants that raised concerns -- Lambda and MU -- did not become the global concerns as the Delta variant proved to be more dominant.

The United Kingdom government issued the following:

- From midday Friday 26 November, South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia will be added to the UK’s travel red list
- Passengers arriving from 4 am Sunday in England will be required to book and pay for a government-approved hotel quarantine facility for 10 days
- British nationals arriving from these six countries between midday Friday and 4 am Sunday, and who have been in these countries within the last 10 days, must quarantine at home for 10 days and take NHS PCR tests on day 2 and day 8, even if they already have a lateral flow test booking
- Direct flights from the 6 countries will be banned from midday Friday until hotel quarantine is up and running from 4 am Sunday 28 November
The precautionary move follows the designation of a new variant under investigation by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA)

The government is taking decisive precautionary action against a new COVID-19 variant by introducing travel restrictions on arrivals from South Africa, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Namibia from midday tomorrow

“More data is needed but we’re taking precautions now,” Sajid Javid, the British health secretary, tweeted.

“Our scientists are at work to study the new B.1.1.529 variant,” Italy’s health minister, Roberto Speranza, said in a statement, using the variant’s scientific name. “Meanwhile we err on the side of caution.”

Italy, Isreal and a number of other countries have announced travel restrictions. The United States has not.

Global stocks declined overnight and U.S. stock futures are down 1%-2% across the indices. S&P 500 futures dropped 1.9%, while futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost about 2.3%.