LONDON: Officials have warned revellers in Scotland and Wales to think twice before traveling to England to ring in the new year, highlighting how the four parts of the UK were again taking starkly different approaches to coronavirus restrictions amid record-high infections and soaring hospitalizations.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resisted tightening restrictions in England despite the rapid spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant, instead focusing on frequent self-testing and an expanded vaccine booster program to control the spread of infections.
Meanwhile Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which set their own public health rules, imposed new restrictions this week that closed all nightclubs and limited social gatherings. Bars and pubs have had to return to table service only. In Edinburgh, which traditionally hosts one of Europe’s largest New Year’s Eve parties, people have been urged to stay at home.
While no formal travel ban is in place to stop Scottish party-goers from making their way to England on Friday, Scotland’s deputy leader John Swinney said traveling would be the “wrong course of action.”
Opinions have been divided on whether Johnson’s Conservative government was taking a risky gamble in not enforcing tougher coronavirus measures in England as the omicron variant drove infections to record high numbers.
Figures released Thursday showed the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 in the UK jumped to 11,898, up 44 percent from a week earlier. Confirmed new daily cases hit a record of 189,213 on Thursday, and the government reported 332 deaths, the highest figure since March.
While the data is patchy due to delays in reporting over the holidays, the figures suggest there have not been large numbers of seriously ill patients.
“Although the numbers are going up and going up increasingly rapidly, the absence of large numbers of seriously ill older people is providing significant reassurance,” Chris Hopson, the head of NHS Providers, told The Times.
But immunologist and government scientific adviser Peter Openshaw said while UK hospitals haven’t yet reached the “threshold” of being overwhelmed, “it looks like that will be reached quite quickly.”
Some believe Johnson’s strategy is risky and that large crowds gathering indoors for New Year’s Eve will likely lead to a further rise in infections.
“It is quite risky, given the fact we’re now approaching 200,000 cases per day –- there is a high rate of infection in the community,” Dr. Azeem Majeed, head of primary care and public health at Imperial College London, told Times Radio.
Johnson has urged people to take a rapid coronavirus test before going out and meeting with others on Friday, or to celebrate outdoors if possible. While firework displays have been canceled in London for the second year in a row, many parties were going ahead and many revellers were still expected to turn out in the capital later in the day.
Party-goers urged not to travel across UK as omicron surges
https://arab.news/brj98
Party-goers urged not to travel across UK as omicron surges
- Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resisted tightening restrictions in England
- Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland imposed new restrictions this week that closed all nightclubs and limited social gatherings
South Africa kicks out Israel’s top diplomat
- The government filed a case against Israel with the International Court of Justice in 2023, saying that its war on Gaza breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention
- Israel said it had expelled South Africa’s charge d’affaires in retaliation for its own representative’s expulsion
JOHANNESBURG: South Africa has declared Israel’s top diplomat in the country “persona non grata” and given him 72 hours to leave, the Foreign Ministry said on Friday, citing a “series of violations.”
Ties between the two nations are already strained, with South Africa bringing a case before the UN top court in 2023 to argue that Israel’s war on Gaza, an illegally occupied Palestinian territory, amounted to genocide.
The Israeli government had been informed that its charge d’affaires, Ariel Seidman, had been “declared persona non grata” and “required to depart from the Republic within 72 hours,” the ministry said in a statement.
“This decisive measure follows a series of unacceptable violations of diplomatic norms and practice which pose a direct challenge to South Africa’s sovereignty,” it said.
They included “the repeated use of official Israeli social media platforms to launch insulting attacks” on President Cyril Ramaphosa.
The Foreign Ministry also accused the embassy of a “deliberate failure” to inform South Africa of “purported visits by senior Israeli officials.”
South African officials were angered by a tweet from the Israeli Embassy in November that commented: “A rare moment of wisdom and diplomatic clarity from President Ramaphosa.”
Israel said it had expelled South Africa’s charge d’affaires in retaliation for its own representative’s expulsion.
South African government officials also condemned this month’s visit by an Israeli delegation to the Eastern Cape province, which reportedly offered to provide water, healthcare, and agricultural expertise.
The visit, which appeared to catch the government by surprise, was hosted by a traditional Xhosa king, who had met Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a trip to Israel in December last year.
In its statement, the Foreign Ministry accused representatives of Israel of actions that “represent a gross abuse of diplomatic privilege and a fundamental breach of the Vienna Convention.”
“They have systematically undermined the trust and protocols essential for bilateral relations,” it said.
South Africa, which hosts the largest Jewish community in sub-Saharan Africa, is largely supportive of the Palestinian cause and sharply critical of Israel.
Pretoria’s embassy in Tel Aviv has been closed since Nov. 17, 2023.
The government filed a case against Israel with the International Court of Justice in 2023, saying that its war on Gaza breached the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. Israel has denied that accusation.
When more than 150 Palestinians flew into South Africa in November without departure stamps from Israel on their passports, the South African foreign minister said there appeared to be “a clear agenda to cleanse Palestinians out of Gaza and the West Bank.”
“We are suspicious as a South African government about the circumstances surrounding the arrival of the plane,” Foreign Minister Ronald Lamola said.
There have been regular protests in South Africa against the Israeli government’s and military’s actions in Gaza, including calls for the embassy in Pretoria to be closed.
In an editorial in November, Seidman criticized South Africa for maintaining full ties with Iran but framing any engagement with the Israeli state as “illegitimate.”
