11-27-2021, 06:09 PM
At least 61 passengers out of 600 who landed in Holland from South Africa yesterday 'have Covid' - and Belgian super-variant case had NEVER been to southern Africa
![[Image: 20211127001940.jpg]](https://images.chinatimes.com/newsphoto/2021-11-27/1024/20211127001940.jpg)
At least 61 new cases of Covid have entered the Netherlands from South Africa, the Dutch health ministry has revealed as fears mount over the spread of the new super mutant variant Omicron.
Around 600 passengers arrived on two planes in Schipol Airport, near Amsterdam, from Johannesburg — the epicentre for the new strain that experts fear is 40 per cent more vaccine evasive than Delta — hours after travel bans were put in place.
Europe's first case of the variant was spotted in Belgium yesterday — despite the unvaccinated woman who caught it having travelled to Turkey and Egypt, not souther Africa where the strain emerged.
South Africa recorded 2,828 new Covid cases yesterday, more than double the 1,374 recorded last Thursday, but infection levels have yet to skyrocket in the country and no hospitalisations with the new variant have occurred so far.
And Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, one of the Oxford scientists behind the AstraZeneca vaccine, today expressed cautious optimism that existing vaccines could be effective at preventing serious disease from the variant.
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- Around 600 passengers arrived on two planes in Schipol Airport, Amsterdam, from Johannesburg yesterday
- Passengers have been put in quarantine hotels while authorities investigate whether they have been infected
- Countries across Europe closed their borders to countries in southern Africa yesterday to combat the variant
At least 61 new cases of Covid have entered the Netherlands from South Africa, the Dutch health ministry has revealed as fears mount over the spread of the new super mutant variant Omicron.
Around 600 passengers arrived on two planes in Schipol Airport, near Amsterdam, from Johannesburg — the epicentre for the new strain that experts fear is 40 per cent more vaccine evasive than Delta — hours after travel bans were put in place.
Europe's first case of the variant was spotted in Belgium yesterday — despite the unvaccinated woman who caught it having travelled to Turkey and Egypt, not souther Africa where the strain emerged.
South Africa recorded 2,828 new Covid cases yesterday, more than double the 1,374 recorded last Thursday, but infection levels have yet to skyrocket in the country and no hospitalisations with the new variant have occurred so far.
And Professor Sir Andrew Pollard, one of the Oxford scientists behind the AstraZeneca vaccine, today expressed cautious optimism that existing vaccines could be effective at preventing serious disease from the variant.
- More -