Government introduces bans on Africa travel over new COVID variant

The federal government has announced all flights from the nine southern African countries affected by the new coronavirus strain, Omicron, will be suspended for two weeks.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt on Saturday said the travel restrictions also apply to people, such as international students and skilled migrants arriving under travel bubble arrangements who have been in any of the nine countries within the past 14 days.

These countries are South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Seychelles, Malawi and Mozambique.

Anyone who has already arrived in Australia and has been in any of the countries within the past 14 days, must immediately isolate themselves and get tested.

Mr Hunt also stressed that the emergence of the variant of concern came as the country was in a very different position to earlier in the pandemic adding there were no known cases of the Omicron variant in Australia.

COVID testing in Johannesburg. The new coronavirus variant detected in South Africa is causing concern due to its apparent speed of transmission.Credit: AP

“The difference is that we now have strong vaccines, we have one of the highest level of coverage in the world, we have one of the most recently vaccinated populations in the world. We have strong public health and social measures and we also have, most significantly, a well-prepared hospital system.”

“There are 20 people in quarantine in Howard Springs in the Northern Territory who’ve arrived from South Africa in the last week,” he said.

All of those arrivals had been tested with just one positive case detected and that case would be examined further, he said.

Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly on Saturday said the new variant of concern was the 13th identified so far in the pandemic and there was no evidence that it led to more severe illness.

“We do know that it is it does contain a large number of mutations. It is quite different to previous variants that we’ve been watching, but at this point other than understanding that it is transmissible between humans and is transmitting, particularly in South Africa, but also in those surrounding countries,” he said.

People line up to get on an overseas flight at the International Airport in Johannesburg.Credit: AP

“We did not at this point have any clear indication that it is more severe, or any definite indication of issues in relation to the vaccine. So I think they’re crucial points to the reason why we’re taking this precautionary approach, which is proportionate to that risk.”

Europe, Britain and a host of other countries closed their borders to non-residents arriving from the southern Africa countries due to the emergence of the variant.

There are no direct flights between South Africa and Australia at present, but a series of other precautionary measures are likely to be announced later on Saturday.

The NSW government does not plan to make any changes to the post-lockdown reopening road map, despite concerns about a new and highly transmissible variant of COVID-19.

NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard told reporters on Saturday that the Omicron variant appeared highly contagious

It hasn’t evaded diagnostic tests, there is no evidence it is evading treatment and no evidence it is more deadly.

Epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws

“That’s concerning for anyone in public health across the world. At this stage, on the early evidence, it is possibly even more transmissible [than Delta],” he said.

“It could be something which is going to cause us a degree of concern going forward. We don’t know if ... any of the vaccines will work with the Omicron variant.”

A Victorian Health Department statement said the government was “working with our Commonwealth and state colleagues to better understand the potential implications of this new variant and which mitigation strategies are required to keep Australians protected”.

UNSW epidemiologist Mary-Louise McLaws said there was evidence that the new Omicron strain had been found in people in Israel, Botswana, Hong Kong, Malawi and Belgium.

“Although the numbers are low, if this strain has been allocated as a variant of concern, then one of the determinations apart from lab-based, with 32 changes to the spike protein, must have come from a determination that there is more transmissibility,” she said.

“It hasn’t evaded diagnostic tests, there is no evidence it is evading treatment and no evidence it is more deadly, so I would suggest it [the classification as a variant of concern] would be based on infectivity. This is very concerning because Delta was already 60 per cent more infectious that Alpha.”

“It’s not just in South Africa any more. They [the federal government] need to learn the lessons from Delta. Our quarantine system has failed on numerous occasions, the system’s failure of one person has been a lesson in how infectious Delta has been, those lessons need to be well taken, if they don’t the group of people in Australia that haven’t been fully vaccinated will suffer.

“We saw one person who the system failed to ensure was vaccinated, to ensure was tested regularly, has now resulted in over 172,000 cases in Australia.

“We have about 69 per cent vaccine coverage of the total population. For 12 plus it’s about 84 per cent, that’s great but it’s not enough to protect us from the introduction of a highly infectious variant.”

Nancy Baxter, an epidemiologist and head of Melbourne University’s School of Population and Global Health, said that Australia needed to close its borders to travellers from southern African nations.

“Although this is currently classified as a ‘variant of concern’ because we are not sure about the risk, there is mounting evidence in South Africa of rapid transmission, and because of the many mutations in the spike protein there is theoretical risk that the Omicron variant will be able to evade immunity (from both vaccination and infection) more than previous variants,” she said.

“That is a potentially extremely dangerous combination. Until we know more we need to adopt the precautionary principle and do what we can to keep this new variant out.”

The WHO’s Technical Advisory Group overnight said Omicron had a large number of mutations that made it concerning, and that preliminary evidence suggested “an increased risk of reinfection” compared to the other variants of concern, including Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.

“The number of cases of this variant appears to be increasing in almost all provinces in South Africa,” the group said in a statement.

“This variant has been detected at faster rates than previous surges in infection, suggesting that this variant may have a growth advantage.”

The WHO has asked countries to step up their surveillance and genomic sequencing and report all cases and clusters.

The White House also imposed a travel ban and extended it to include Malawi.

There have been no cases of Omicron detected in Britain, but one found in Belgium. Belgium’s Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke told a news conference that the case had been found four days ago in an unvaccinated woman with flu-like symptoms who had travelled from Egypt via Turkey.

None of her household contacts had developed symptoms but were being tested.

“It is a suspicious variant. We do not know if it is a very dangerous variant,” Vandenbroucke said.

The first case of the infection, previously called B.1.1.529, was detected in South Africa on November 9.

Britain moved ahead of the WHO’s declaration, announcing on Thursday night (local time) that it was closing its borders to South Africa and five other countries on Friday, causing chaos at airports.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid said there were “early indications that suggest it may be more transmissible and vaccines less effective”.

“We are concerned that this new variant may pose substantial risk to public health. The variant has an unusually large number of mutations,” Javid told the Commons.

With Ashleigh McMillan

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