Airline passengers flying to the US from the UK will have to produce a negative Covid-19 test from the three days before travel as authorities there try to prevent the new coronavirus variant gaining a toehold in the country.
Travellers will be banned from boarding aircraft if they cannot provide written documentation of a lab-based test to the airline, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said in a Christmas Day statement.
The new rules will be applied from 28 December onwards, it added.
The restrictions follow a week in which countries across the globe have shut their borders to UK travellers amid fears over the mutated variant, which is thought to have emerged in Kent and which is believed to be far more infectious than previous variants.
China, Canada and much of Europe have all banned all flights from Britain, while parts of Kent have been turned into giant lorry parks after France refused admission for truck drivers until they had taken tests.
In the US itself, New York City authorities had already introduced quarantine rules for international travellers. All visitors are ordered to stay at the address they provided on arrival for 14 days.
In the UK, meanwhile, some 39,036 new coronavirus cases were reported on Christmas Eve with another 574 deaths.
But there are growing concerns that even those numbers may soon be dwarfed with the new variant predicted to result in an explosion of cases all across the UK within the coming days and weeks.
Boris Johnson has so far stressed that there is “no evidence to suggest it is more lethal or causes more severe illness” than other variants but scientists say that simply by spreading more quickly, it will kill more people.
Peru nightclub crush kills 13 people after police raid over lack of social distancing
At least 13 people died in a crush as partygoers tried to flee a Lima nightclub raided by police because it was in breach of coronavirus restrictions.
People were crushed to death or suffocated as around 120 people tried to escape the Thomas Restobar club on Saturday, national police and government officials said.
Local media reported that the victims were in their 20s.
A further six people were injured, including three police officers.
A statement from the Interior Ministry blamed the “criminal irresponsibility of an unscrupulous businessman” for the tragedy.
Neighbours had reported a loud event at the club in the Los Olivos district of the Peruvian capital at 9pm local time.
“In these circumstances when people begin to fight to get out, it’s tumultuous, everyone goes against each other,” Orlando Velasco of the national police told local radio station RPP.
People from the party tried to squeeze en masse through the only entrance door and became trapped between the door and a staircase leading to the street, according to the Interior Ministry.
No weapons or tear gas were used during the police intervention and 23 people have been detained, the ministry added.
Rosario Sasieta, Peru’s women’s minister, said she was outraged.
“It should never have happened. We are in a pandemic, in a health emergency. I am calling for the maximum punishment possible for the nightclub owners,” she told RPP.
Peru closed nightclubs and bars in March and banned extended family gatherings on 12 August to fight what is Latin America’s second-highest Covid-19 infection rate, according to a Reuters tally. A Sunday curfew is also in effect.
Peru had recorded 585,236 coronavirus cases as of Saturday, double the number reported on 2 July. The known death toll has reached 27,453.
