Biden moves to re-impose travel ban on South Africa over mutant COVID-19 variant

The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden will on Monday re-impose a travel ban on South Africa that Donald Trump lifted just days before his term ended, due to the mutant COVID-19 strain in the country.

Reports say that the travel restrictions would apply to non-US citizens travelling from South Africa and Brazil, which are facing new variants of the deadly COVID-19 virus.

The report by the BBC also reveals that travelers from the UK, Ireland and 26 other European countries are also expected to be banned.

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In a related development, New Zealand’s first case of COVID-19 has been identified as the South African variant, health minister Chris Hipkins said in a statement issued on Monday.

Hipkins also added in the statement that the patient, 56-year-old woman probably caught the virus from another returning traveler just before leaving compulsory quarantine.

“We can confirm that the strain of infection is the South African variant and the source of infection is highly likely to be a fellow returnee during the person’s stay at the Pullman hotel,” Hipkins told reporters in the capital, Wellington.

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