Spain Suspends Flights with Brazil & South Africa over Covid Variant Fears

Spain Suspends Flights with Brazil & South Africa over Covid Variant Fears.

THE Spanish Government has approved restrictions for all flights that connect Spain with Brazil and South Africa, countries where variations of the coronavirus have been detected.

The measure, agreed by the Ministries of the Presidency, Health and Transport, takes effect tomorrow (February 3) at 9am and will be implemented for two weeks (until February 17). The government will assess, once the prescribed period ends, if the restriction is to be extended.

During this period, only flights containing passengers living in Spain or Andorra, also residents of both countries, or by passengers in international transit to a country outside the Schengen area, who are going to make a stopover in Spain of less than 24 hours, may be made without leaving the transit area of ​​the Spanish airport.

Minister of Finance and government spokesperson, María Jesús Montero, has framed the decision as “decisive action” from the government to protect the health of residents and has maintained that it is “in line with the recommendations” of the EU as well as those formulated by the emergency committee of the WHO.

This Monday (February 1), the Minister of Foreign Affairs, EU and Cooperation, Arancha González Laya, had already announced that the government was studying the adoption of measures to prevent the arrival of the new strains detected in other countries – indicating that the objective is “to avoid the contagion of those strains that travel faster, that are transmitted faster and that will make this pandemic grow exponentially.”

The Council of Ministers has also approved today (February 2) that Covid-19 should be considered an occupational disease among infected health workers.

Yesterday (February 1), we reported that this decision will allow a health worker who has been infected by coronavirus access to the same benefits that they would have in case of occupational disease.

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