Kathmandu, December 17
France is set to b an travelers from the UK for work or travel. The new Omicron variant of the Covid-19will be banned from British passengers.
The French government issued a statement on Thursday stating that travelers coming from the UK for work or travel would be barred from midnight on Saturday. People coming to France from the UK for other purposes need to disclose the reasons they need to travel, the statement said.
“Due to the rapid spread of the Omicron variant in the UK, the government has decided to reintroduce the requirement for both arrivals and departures,” the statement said. But the government says French and EU citizens can come to France from the UK.
Citizens returning to France from the UK are required to show a negative PCR report within 24 hours and all passengers must be subject to mandatory quarantine, said French government spokesman Gabriel Attal. “Returning people will have to register in the relevant app and stay in self-isolation for 7 days at the place they want,” he said.
But Attal also said that the self-isolation period could be reduced to 48 hours if the PCR report in France turned out to be negative. France has taken the latest step after the number of daily infections in the UK reached an all-time high since the outbreak.
A total of 78,610 new infections were reported in the UK on Wednesday. That number has been high since the beginning of the epidemic. More than 10,000 new variants of Omicron have been found infected there. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has warned that a widespread wave of infections could begin as the number of people infected with the highly contagious omicron begins to rise.
Omicron terror is on the rise even in Europe. On Wednesday alone, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that Omicron would appear as a major variant in the 27 EU member states by mid-January.
According to Von der Leyen, European countries are facing a double challenge in the past week due to the increasing number of delta variants on the one hand and the spread of omicron on the other hand.
“We are seeing an increase in the number of sick people, an increase in hospital pressure and an increase in the number of deaths,” von der Leyen told the European Parliament.
(Karuna Thapa)
