UK Adds Four More Countries To Ban List (See List)

The United Kingdom government has added four new countries to the list of those banned from entering the UK due to the coronavirus prevalence.

This development was announced on Friday by the Department for Transport, noting that visitors from such countries would be banned from entering the UK as from next week.

The affected countries are Kenya, Bangladesh, the Philippines and Pakistan and will include anyone who left the countries or transited through them in the previous 10 days.

The ban would become effective as from 0300 GMT on April 9, Naija News understands.

However, UK and Irish nationals and those with UK residence rights arriving from those countries will have to quarantine in hotels for 10 days.

The department said the ban was to curb the risk of importing coronavirus “variants of concern” into the UK.

The new rules take the total number of red-listed countries to 39.

In other developments, Japan has appointed a Minister of Loneliness in a bid to reduce loneliness and social isolation among its residents as the country deals with rising suicide rates.

According to The Japan Times, Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga created the role in early February, taking after the U.K., which created its own role in 2018.

Tetsushi Sakamoto will take on the role, the Times reported, while also handling the country’s falling birth rates and regional economies.

Figures from the National Police Agency showed that 20,919 people committed suicide in 2020, a 750-person increase from the previous year and the first consecutive rise in suicides in 11 years, the Times reported. According to the outlet, the surge is most noticeable among women and young people.

Suga said to the country’s budget committee earlier this month that people from all walks of life are vulnerable, the Times reported.

The newspaper noted that Japan is familiar with loneliness, as kodokushi, or “lonely deaths,” are common. They involve people dying inside their homes and remaining undiscovered for long periods of time.

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