Canada has lifted the travel ban slammed on Nigeria, South Africa and 8 other African countries in wake of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 outbreak.
The other countries include: Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Eswatini, Namibia, Malawi and Egypt.
The lifting of the ban was disclosed by the Canada’s Health Minister, Jean-Yves Duclos at a news conference on Friday.
Notwithstanding, the country re-imposed testing as it warned that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 will very likely overwhelm hospitals.
He stated that the lifting of the ban would take effect from 11:59pm on Saturday, 17th of December.
The restriction was announced in November “to slow the arrival of Omicron in Canada and buy us some time,” the Health Minister said.
“But with Omicron now spreading within Canada, it is no longer needed,” he added.
Duclos stated that pre-arrival negative PCR tests for all travellers would also be reinstated as of December 21, as he reiterated a government warning earlier this week that “now is not the time to travel.”
Officials said laboratory tests had confirmed as of Friday nearly 350 cases of the Omicron variant across Canada.
The total average daily Covid case count, meanwhile, has jumped by 45 per cent in the past week to about 5,000.
“It is expected the sheer number of (Omicron) cases could inundate the health system in a very short period of time,” said Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam.
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