Coronavirus continues to hit UK -

Gill Allen / REX / SIPA

A massive screening operation was launched on Monday by the health authorities in eight areas of England where cases of the coronavirus variant that appeared in South Africa have been detected.

Almost 80,000 people live in the affected regions (parts of London, West Midlands, East, South East and North West).

Cases unrelated to travel

Since December 22, 105 cases of this variant likely to be more contagious, against which some of the current vaccines seem less effective, have been detected, according to the British Department of Health.

In recent days, 11 cases have been identified without any link to travel can be established.

"It is vital that we do all we can to stop the transmission of this variant," Health Minister Matt Hancock said in a statement, calling on all those living in the affected areas to be tested, that they may or may not show symptoms.

Since the detection of the first cases of this variant in the United Kingdom at the end of December, the government has banned all direct air links from South Africa and closed its borders to arrivals from around thirty countries deemed at risk.

Nine million people vaccinated in the UK

To these restrictions must be added soon the imposition of a mandatory quarantine at the hotel for travelers from these countries to whom entry into British territory could not be refused, because residents in the United Kingdom in particular .

Already confronted with a more contagious variant which has led to an explosion of the epidemic and a third confinement, the United Kingdom, which has already vaccinated nearly nine million people, intends to fight against the importation of new variants which would be more transmissible and against which current vaccines would be less effective.

The coronavirus has killed more than 106,000 in the United Kingdom, the hardest-hit country in Europe.

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