Britain begins hotel quarantines
People flying into England from South Africa, Brazil and 31 other countries deemed by Britain to be hot spots for coronavirus variants now have to complete a 10-day quarantine in a government-sanctioned hotel.
The quarantines, which began on Monday, will cost nearly $2,500 for a single adult, including meals, security guards and testing. Travelers from elsewhere are also required to self-isolate in the place they’re staying for 10 days. Scotland is requiring all international air passengers, no matter where from, to isolate on arrival in a government-designated hotel.
The restrictions are among the first of this kind in Europe, modeled after strict requirements in other countries with a better grasp on their epidemics, like Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Context: Britain has suffered one of the world’s worst coronavirus outbreaks in terms of deaths per capita. But cases and deaths have plummeted in recent weeks amid a stringent lockdown.
Here are the latest updates and maps of the pandemic.
In other developments:
■ The World Health Organization authorized the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, clearing a path for the cheap and easy-to-store shots to be distributed in lower- and middle-income countries around the world.
■ Italy made a last-minute decision to reverse course on a plan to allow visitors back to its ski slopes, pushing a reopening that was set for Monday back to March 5 at the earliest.
■ Zimbabwe will begin vaccinations this week, the president announced, with 200,000 doses donated by China of its Sinopharm vaccine, on top of the 600,000 doses that Zimbabwe purchased.
The New York Times
Me: “The World Health Organization authorized the use of the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine,” With a reported 10% success rate, why would you bother having it – but of course, vaccines are about money and not saving lives really. If you must have a vaccine Moderna and Pfizer are the best with 95% success rate