The World Health Organization announces a new system of naming the COVID-19 variants using the Greek alphabet in order to avoid stigmatizing countries where variants are first detected. According to the new system, B.1.1.7 becomes Alpha, B.1.351 becomes Beta, and P.1 becomes Gamma. Meanwhile B.1.617, which split into sub-lineage B.1.617.1 and B.1.617.2, is called Kappa and Delta respectively. 2021-05-31
Belgium announces that easing of major COVID-19-related restrictions will be put on hold for another week due to an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections and the spread of the Lineage B.1.1.7 variant. 2021-02-26
Palestine reports their first cases of the B.1.1.7 variant first detected in the United Kingdom in 139 people from the West Bank. 2021-02-16
Washington, D.C. confirms its first cases of the 501.V2 variant from South Africa and the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2. 2021-02-11
Uzbekistan reports its first case of the UK variant of SARS-CoV-2 in a 10-year-old child who travelled with her family to the United Arab Emirates last week. 2021-01-30
The Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports their first case of a new variant of SARS-CoV-2. The patient is a 23-year-old woman who travelled from the United Kingdom to Shanghai on December 14 and later tested positive for COVID-19. 2020-12-31
The Japanese Foreign Ministry will ban non-resident foreign nationals from entering Japan from December 28 until the end of January after several cases of a more infectious variant of SARS-CoV-2 were reported in the country. Japanese citizens and foreign residents will be required to self-quarantine for 14 days when they enter the country. 2020-12-26