Italy will suspend flights to and from Britain after the United Kingdom issued an alert over a new strain of coronavirus.
"The United Kingdom has issued an alert concerning a new strain of COVID-19... our duty is to protect Italians and for this reason... we will sign, with the health minister, a decree suspending flights to and from Britain," Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote on his Facebook account.
The UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday had announced new tier-4 COVID-19 restrictions in parts of England, including London, due to the rapid spread of a new variant of coronavirus, limiting the Christmas celebrations.
"We will introduce new restrictions in the most affected areas, specifically... London, the Southeast and East of England, which are currently in tier 3. These areas will enter new tier 4, which will be broadly equivalent to national restrictions, which were placed in England in November," Johnson said in an address to the nation as quoted by .
On Monday, UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock announced the discovery of a new strain of the virus, which was reported in roughly 1,000 individuals in southern England.
"As a result of the rapid spread of the new variant, preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates in the Southeast, the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group now consider that the new strain can spread more quickly," Whitty said in a statement published by the UK government online.
( With inputs from ANI )
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