Peru Extends Flight Restriction for Brazil, India, South Africa

The Ministry of Transport and Communications (MTC) of Peru extended the suspension of flights from India, Brazil and South Africa to limit the chances of spreading in its nation territory the new variants of COVID-19 originating in these countries.

The Ministerial Resolution 636-2021-MTC/01, published on Thursday, establishes the new extension that runs until July 15 and that at the end may be renewed in the case that the conditions in these countries continue to deterioriate.

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The governmental decision takes place in the context of the spread of some variants in the national territory, such as Gamma (Brazil), Alpha (United Kingdom), Lambda (Andean), and the Delta variant, the latter coming from India and of which four cases have already been found in the country. 

Despite the precautions taken by the Peruvian government to prevent the arrival of new variants of the coronavirus, the country is currently facing the presence of four of them, with C.37, also known as the Andean variant, being the dominant variant, present in 80 percent of COVID-19 infections in the national territory.

With this measure, the South American country is approaching four uninterrupted months without commercial flights from Brazil and South Africa, together with two months without connections to India.

"The @MTC_GobPeru suspends flights from India, Brazil and South Africa to limit the chances of spread in the territory of new variants of #Covid_19 originating in those countries."

However, with these suspended destinations, the interruption of flights to Brazil affects the population in a much deeper way, since it is a very important commercial partner for multiple nations of the region.

At the moment, the South American country is experiencing a decline in terms of infections and deaths compared to what happened during the last months, which represented the worst peak of the whole pandemic, a second wave that lasted five months.

To date, the official balance indicates that the total number of infected people has reached 2,057,554, figures that place the country as one of the world epicenters of the COVID-19 pandemic.