Morocco Suspends Flights with 9 More Countries Due to New Covid-19 Strains

Moroccan authorities decided to temporarily suspend flights with several countries, starting from Monday, February 22nd, due to epidemiological developments related to the discovery of new Covid-19 strains in Morocco.

The suspension of back-and-forth flights concerns Austria, Portugal, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey. These countries will be added to South Africa, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand and Ireland which were included in an earlier suspension announcement.

The Embassy of Switzerland said yesterday evening that Morocco has decided to temporarily suspend all flights to the country, adding that this decision will be evaluated every 15 days.

For its part, the Embassy of Turkey in Morocco announced that within “the precautionary measures to fight the Corona epidemic and in accordance with the standards set by the Ministry of Health, the government of the Kingdom of Morocco decided to suspend the entry of travelers and trips coming from Turkey, along with some other European countries, starting from February 22nd, at 24.00 for 15 days.”

As for the Embassy of Germany, it announced via a post on Facebook the suspension of flights between Germany and Morocco, adding that “people who have previously resided in Germany and regardless of their citizenship are no longer allowed to enter Morocco. This means that it is no longer possible to enter Morocco with transit flights or via third countries.” It also stated that there is still a possibility to leave Morocco via third countries, if there is a flight offer, noting that this suspension will last until March 21st, but should however be checked every 14 days.

The suspension of these trips comes after the Consortium of Laboratories in charge of genomic watch and monitoring of the new variants of the virus in Morocco announced, on Saturday, February 20th, that 21 new strains of the UK variant (B.1.1.7) had been detected, according to a statement by the Ministry of Health.

The ministry said that they have detected 24 strains so far, noting that the Genomic Monitoring Service has not yet discovered any type of South African or Brazilian variants of Covid-19 in Morocco.

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