Switzerland announced today that, as of Monday, the ban imposed on six southern African countries, including Mozambique, from flying into the country because of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 will be lifted.

Thus, as of Monday the ban on entry into Switzerland from South Africa and five other southern African countries, imposed in November following the detection of the first cases of the Omicron variant of Covi-19 in the region, will be lifted.

The decision follows the lead of the European Union, which earlier this month also opened its borders to tourists coming from these regions.

The other five countries affected by the ban, which will also be lifted next week, are Botswana, Esuatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe, the Swiss State Secretariat for Migration said on its official Twitter account.

The more than two-month ban on southern African citizens has not stopped the rapid circulation of the variant in Switzerland, as in other countries around the world, with the central European country reaching a record number of new daily cases on Tuesday the 18th (37,000 new positive cases).

Mortality rates have also increased slightly during the current wave, although they are relatively low (about 20 deaths per day) and lower than in the previous wave phases of covid-19.

Covid-19 has caused at least 5.57 million deaths worldwide since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest report from Agence France-Presse.