Variant B.1.1.529 has an "extremely high" number of mutations.
A new variant of the coronavirus detected in South Africa, apparently very contagious, caused several European countries, where the pandemic has been raging for weeks, decided this Friday to close their doors to travelers from various southern African states.

The first country to shield itself was the United Kingdom, which announced Thursday that it will ban the entry of people from six African countries: South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Eswatini (or Swaziland) from Friday.
This Friday, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Twitter that she will propose "to activate the emergency brake to interrupt flights from the southern African region" during a meeting scheduled for Friday.

"The situation is evolving very fast, we want to have the maximum guarantees to stop the expansion of this variant," a spokesman for the European Commission told AFP.
But several countries, such as Germany, France and Italy, did not wait for the go-ahead from Brussels.

"The last thing we need now is a new variant that causes more problems," said German Health Minister Jens Spahn, a country where the coronavirus has been advancing strongly for weeks.

Italy also announced that it prohibited the entry into its territory of any person who has remained in South Africa in the "last 14 days".