New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Sunday called on the administration of President Donald Trump to take precautions due to the new covid-19 virus mutation that has emerged in the UK and is spreading rapidly.
He stressed during a press conference to talk about the pandemic, that several countries have banned people from traveling from the UK and that 120 require that before taking a flight in that country to come to their home they must have a negative test.
But, Cuomo said, the United States has not taken any action in response to the virus mutation, which the Democratic governor considers “reprehensible.”
Cuomo questioned that six daily flights from that country to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) are still arriving “and we have done absolutely nothing.”
“For me this is reprehensible because it is what happened during the spring” when the pandemic erupted in the US he said and stated that at the moment “the variant in the UK is arriving by plane at JFK airport”.
“One hundred and twenty countries require a test. We don’t. Other European countries have imposed a ban. We don’t have it and today the variant is taking a plane and landing at the JFK. How many times in life do you have to make the same mistake before learning “he said.
He recalled that the Ports Authority, which administers the bridges, roads and ports of New York and New Jersey, does not have the authority to ban passengers or monitor their health, which is a federal government task.
On December 14, the British Minister of Health, Matt Hancock, warned of a “new variant” that is spreading very quickly of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes covid-19, which had been identified in the United Kingdom.
Hancock said British scientists had detected “a new variant of coronavirus that may be associated with the fastest spread in the south of England”.
The governor called on the federal government to consider multiple restrictions following the new covid-19 variant, including the imposition of mandatory tests on people traveling from the UK to that country as well as a new ban on traveling from Europe.
According to Cuomo, the actions he recommends are based on lessons learned in March, when the federal government took a long time to impose a European travel ban that allowed the virus to spread uncontrollably across the state. New York and the country.
The governor also indicated in his conference that in New York there are 6,185 patients for covid in hospitals, 23 less than on Saturday, 822 new admissions and 123 deaths.
The United States has recorded 17.7 million cases and more than 316,000 deaths from covid-19, more than in any other country in the world in absolute terms, according to the independent count of Johns Hopkins University.