SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Hours af­ter the World Health Or­gan­i­sa­tion (WHO) de­clared the new­ly-iden­ti­fied coro­n­avirus vari­ant, Omi­cron, as a vari­ant of con­cern, T&T has an­nounced re­stric­tions to en­try for trav­ellers from sev­en African coun­tries.

Ac­cord­ing to a re­lease from the Min­istry of Health, those coun­tries are Botswana, Eswa­ti­ni (for­mer­ly Swazi­land), Lesotho, Malawi, Mozam­bique, Namib­ia, South Africa and Zim­bab­we.

These re­stric­tions went in­to place from mid­night on Fri­day (No­vem­ber 26).

The min­istry al­so warned cit­i­zens against trav­el­ling to the coun­tries where the vari­ant has been de­tect­ed.

The Omi­cron vari­ant was first de­tect­ed in South Africa and has since been found in Botswana, Hong Kong and Bel­gium.

The min­istry said all non-na­tion­als who have vis­it­ed the named coun­tries with­in a 14-day pe­ri­od of their ar­rival to T&T will be de­nied en­try in­to the coun­try.

Cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents who have vis­it­ed the list­ed coun­tries with­in 14 days of their ar­rival to T&T will be al­lowed to en­ter the coun­try but they must un­der­go state-su­per­vised quar­an­tine for 14 days.

"The pub­lic is ad­vised that the trav­eller will be re­quired to bear all as­so­ci­at­ed costs and there­fore should make the nec­es­sary arrange­ments pri­or to trav­el," the min­istry stat­ed.

These con­di­tions ap­ply to both vac­ci­nat­ed and un­vac­ci­nat­ed cit­i­zens and per­ma­nent res­i­dents.

The min­istry said all oth­er ex­ist­ing en­try re­quire­ments, in­clud­ing neg­a­tive COVID-19 tests, re­main in place and must be fol­lowed.

"The Min­istry of Health strong­ly ad­vis­es against all non-es­sen­tial trav­el to the afore­men­tioned af­fect­ed ar­eas," the re­lease stat­ed.