Oman extends closure of international land borders until February 8

Oman’s Supreme Committee has decided to extend the closure of its international land borders for another week, it announced on January 31.

Border closures will be in effect till 6pm on Monday, February 8, 2021.

The committee said that the decision was based on the recommendations of a team of specialists that is monitoring developments surrounding the new strain of the virus.

The country had earlier closed its land borders from January 18. It said at the time that the closure was for a week, but reiterated that the duration could be extended depending on the situation.

Read: Oman closes land border for one week, says closure can be extended

On January 31, the sultanate reported 598 new Covid-19 infections. It took the total number of cases in the country up to 134,326. It also reported two deaths, scaling the number of fatalities up to 1,529.

In December, Oman approved the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

Read: Oman approves emergency use of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine

This week, India’s Ministry of External Affairs confirmed that it had dispatched 100,000 doses of a Covid-19 vaccine manufactured in India under the UN’s Covax initiative.