France has decided to suspend “until further notice” all flights between Brazil and France because of concerns over the Brazilian variant of COVID-19, French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced on Tuesday as reported by Reuters.

“We take note that the situation is getting worse and we have decided to suspend all flights between France and Brazil until further notice,” Castex said in parliament.

Brazil recorded 3,687 deaths by COVID-19 this Tuesday, reaching 358,718 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. With that, the average of deaths in Brazil in the last 7 days reached 3,051. It is the fourth day in a row that this average is above the 3,000 mark.

The country’s P1 variant, considered more contagious and dangerous, is one of the reasons behind the worsening of the health situation in Brazil.

Although in France the Brazilian variant P1 represents only 0.5% of diagnosed cases, where the British strain is predominant, health professionals have been warning for a few days about the spread of this strain.