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UK rings alarm on new Covid strain in South Africa
By EUobserver
The UK has barred flights from South Africa and five other countries in the region, citing the threat of a highly infectious and vaccine-resistant Covid variant called B.1.1.529. "You have to be reasonably paranoid," Ewan Birney, a UK health advisor, told The Guardian. Separately, EU health agencies EMA and ECDC Thursday urged more people to get vaccinated, saying: "Vaccines are essential if we want to get out of this pandemic".