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Guyana’s 30 day ban on air travel from Brazil extended-GCAA Director
The Guyana-Brazil land border in Region Nine.
Kaieteur News – Guyana’s ban on air travel from Brazil has been extended by the government in a bid to continue to protect citizens from the Brazilian P.2 variant that is circulating globally. This was revealed by the Director-General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Egbert Fields who spoke to Kaieteur News via telephone yesterday.
The Director -General of the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority, Egbert Fields
During his discussion with this publication, Fields noted the importance of protecting the general population from the variant, hence the extension.
The P.2 variant has been circulating since early January and has been said to be more infectious, meaning that it spreads faster from person to person. In light of that, the government through the National COVID-19 Task Force (NCTF) sought to impose a 30-day air travel ban on air travel from Brazil in late January. The government has been increasing efforts to curb the spread of that variant here given Brazil’s proximity and the nation’s lack of testing capacity.
Land travel to and from the country is also restricted. The restriction on using the Takatu land border crossing in Region Nine (Upper Takatu- Upper Essequibo) which links Guyana to Brazil has been imposed since March last year when Guyana shut down all borders after recording its first case. Over the months the government opted to keep the land border closed, leaving no official points of entry to Guyana from Brazil opened. This is because the country has recorded some of the highest cases of the virus worldwide, way before the new variant started circulating.
Minister of Health, Dr. Frank Anthony has also lamented that it is a health hazard for a country like Guyana as he referred to the P.2 variant, saying, “And if this is more transmissible, then more people are going to get infected and if more people are going to get infected, then we can assume that we will get a percentage of them – a higher percentage of them coming into the hospital needing ICU care.”
While both land and air travel remains restricted, the weekly exchange of goods between both countries continues. The exercise, which is monitored by Guyana and Brazil’s health authorities, is usually conducted every Thursday at the Takatu land border.
Additionally, both Guyana and Brazil have increased the number of joint service patrols monitoring the land border to ensure there is no illegal crossing at other unofficial points of entry.
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