is consulting with & to make decisions on international travel. Important to move quickly on this, coordination across EU is important to be effective. Hundreds rally in Belfast against Covid-19 certification scheme.UK to require all incoming international travellers to take Covid-19 test.Covid-19: Over 150 passengers depart Morocco on Government repatriation flight.The United States is set to join other nations and introduce travel restrictions from a number of countries in southern Africa. He said any cases of Covid with a link to these seven countries will be subject to enhanced contact tracing and whole genome sequencing to see if the variant is present. Mr Donnelly said other countries will begin seeing cases of the variant, “undoubtedly”. “The EU is looking at travel advisory for those countries as well, and obviously this is something we will keep under constant review.” With cases detected in Belgium, Israel and Hong Kong, he said these countries could be added to a travel restrictions list. He said that can be looked at again in the future. The chief medical officer, Dr Tony Holohan, has advised that the Government should consider the reintroduction of MHQ, but full consideration of that advice has not been given by the Government yet.Īsked about the Munster rugby squad, who are currently in South Africa, he said that the measures apply “regardless of your status”, even though there was a carve out for elite sports teams previously. He said it will be a relatively small number of people. The Garda will have a role to play in enforcing the home-quarantine regime, but Mr Donnelly indicated his expectation that people will treat the obligation “very seriously”. People arriving from the countries concerned will also have to have a pre-flight PCR test, regardless of their vaccine status.
Visa requirements are also being updated for those countries by the Department of Justice. The decision is that Ireland will align with the EU recommendation to apply the “emergency brake” in respect of the countries concerned. Irish citizens are being advised not to travel to Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and to leave these countries if they are there.
“We’re acting in a precautionary manner in line with the UK and the rest of Europe, ” he said. Speaking on RTÉ’s Six-One news, Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly said initial indications are that the new variant is “highly transmissible” and that it has “outperformed or taken over from Delta” in South Africa. Meanwhile, the Government is to reintroduce the legislation for the mandatory hotel quarantine system (MHQ) with a view to potentially re-establishing it in the coming weeks. The new rules will apply regardless of vaccine, recovery or PCR test status, and people will have to take two PCR tests during their quarantine period. People arriving in Ireland from the seven countries will have to quarantine at home for 10 days after entering the State, under new restrictions confirmed tonight in wake of the detection of a new Covid-19 variant of concern. EU member states have agreed to introduce rapidly restrictions on all travel into the region from seven countries in southern Africa, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s spokesman has said.īotswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe are the countries, Eric Mamer tweeted on Friday evening.