Australian city enters lockdown after UK strain detected; France closes UK border for ‘forseeable future’; UK extends ban on southern African travellers
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Australia’s Queensland state enforced a three-day lockdown in the city of Brisbane from Friday evening, after a hotel quarantine worker tested positive for the more contagious variant of Covid-19 that emerged in Britain last month.
State premier Annastacia Palaszczuk told reporters:
We know that this UK strain is highly infectious. It is 70% more infectious, and we are going to go hard and we are going to go early to do everything we can to stop the spread of this virus.”
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic.
My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest global developments for the next few hours.
