The UK announced on Thursday evening that flights from South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland (Eswatini), Zimbabwe and Botswana will be stopped from noon on Friday.

Now the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, states that the Union wants to follow suit.

The Commission proposes that "flights from the southern African region be stopped", she writes.

"Damages the economy"

South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor responded in a communiqué yesterday that their decision "seems premature" and that it hopes to withdraw.

South Africa's tourism, which has just started up again after several severe shutdowns and restrictions due to covid-19 and Pandor, is worried about how the decision will affect the country's economy.

South Africa confirms about 100 samples of the variant, which have also been found in Botswana and Hong Kong.

The variant seems to spread fastest in the province of South Africa, Gauteng, but can also occur in the country's other eight provinces, researchers fear.

"Although data are limited, our experts work overtime with all established monitoring systems to understand the new variant and what the potential consequences could be," the South African Institute of Infectious Diseases wrote in a statement.

Has several mutations

The new variant, which goes by the name B.1.1.529, has at least ten different mutations, according to researchers.

It can be compared to Delta's two and Beta's three.

- The worrying thing is that when you have so many mutations, it can be important for how the virus behaves, says WHO's Maria Van Kerkhove according to the news agency AFP.

The World Health Organization, WHO, has not yet decided whether the variant should be classified as a variant of interest or whether it should end up on the list of the most worrying variants.

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Hear SVT's Africa correspondent Johan Ripås about the new corona variant in South Africa.

Photo: NIC BOTHMA / EPA / TT, SVT