Why would the government close airports and require PCR testing in an effort to stop the variants entering the DR.? The variants are world wide now and it’s more than likely they are in the DR given the large number of UK tourists that have travelled to the DR since last fall. Hopefully the latest new highly infectious South African variant that is resistant to the vaccines is not. The PCR test only indicates positive or negative. They don’t indicate if it’s a variant. That requires genome testing, which I would imagine is very limited in the DR, if it exists at all.
The fecal material has already hit the aerator in Canada. This morning, many Canadian families are stuck abroad having difficulty obtaining PCR tests. The airlines are asking the government for a delay of a week or two because the onus is on them to ensure passengers returning to Canada have the tests. Now the DR government wants to join the PCR test requirement madness. Too little too late and it will all come crashing down at Canadian airports soon.
This is a gong show folks, and as painful as it is, it will have to play out until some degree of sanity starts to prevail.
British Airways only flew four planeloads in, I believe the first flight was 15th December and the last was on 20th December. And TUI UK similarly only started its service mid-December and promptly had all flights cancelled by the Dominican government. So it's not correct to say that there were a lot of UK tourists, I estimate 2000 maximum, almost all of whom will have stayed in an AI with little contact with people in the main hotspots of Santo Domingo and Santiago.
I think it's pretty certain an announcement is coming on 10th, basically because we don't know what the curfew times will be after 10th. And yesterday Abinader hinted that there would be tougher measures, saying that Dominicans need to have one last big push, so IMO he is paving the ground for next week.