Family stranded in South Africa
When businesswoman Marina Wessolowski found its way to Cape Town in Dec. 12 she was looking forward to spending Christmas with family and friends before flying back to Germany early the following month.
However the emergence of a fresh, fast-spreading strain of the coronavirus in South Africa ensures that she, her husband and two daughters are actually uncertain when they can return home.That's just because a growing amount of countries, including Germany, contain barred travellers from South Africa while they assess how many danger the new variant poses.
"We found out today that we won't be able to go back home, so that is fairly a shock to us," Wessolowski, who runs a cosmetics distribution firm in Berlin, informed Reuters on Monday outside her rental flat overlooking the city.There had been not any notification yet from airline Lufthansa on their Jan. 12 return flight to Frankfurt. "We haven't observed from anybody especially on what is certainly the next step, therefore we are waiting," she said.
At OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on Tuesday, there have been fewer passengers than normal, most flying domestic routes.South Africa's health department said last week the brand new virus mutation could be behind a recently available surge in infections.
The variant is different from one identified in Britain, though both carry mutations that produce them more transmissible than previously circulating dominant strains.Having not noticed her 76-year-old mother to get a year, Wessolowski - a South African-born German - said their inability to interact even more to due COVID-related constraints has been the toughest part of her go to.
"She has been very lonely ... but we are all following the rules and keeping our distance with her. It's very difficult to observe your mom after a year and you can't hug her," a tearful Wessolowski added.South Africa's tourism department said it had zero information on numbers of flights cancelled or rescheduled due to the bans, but that it had been dealing with the foreign ministry and foreign embassies to facilitate contact between foreign citizens in South Africa and their governments.
