Egypt, Malawi, and Nigeria have been added to Canada’s ‘travel ban’ list as a result of mounting worries about the Omicron strain of COVID-19.
“We are adding three countries to the list of these countries that we talked about last Friday, these are Malawi, Egypt and Nigeria,” Canadian Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos said as quoted by Sputnik news agency.
Duclos went on to say that all international travelers, except those from the United States, will now be screened for the novel coronavirus disease at Canadian airports, regardless of vaccination status.
This comes after the World Health Organization urged countries to be calm and adopt “sensible” actions in reaction to the new COVID variant, Omicron, on Tuesday.
“We call on all member states to take rational, proportional risk-reduction measures,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a briefing to countries, according to Al Jazeera reports.
Meanwhile, when South Africa notified the WHO last week, the Omicron was already in the Netherlands.
