More countries suspend travel links with Britain
Freight lorries drive under police escort on the M20 motorway which leads to the Port of Dover in Kent, England, on Monday, as a string of countries banned travel from the UK, due to the rapid spread of a more-infectious new coronavirus strain.
A slew of countries closed their borders to Britain on Monday over fears of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, heightening global panic, causing travel chaos and raising the prospect of UK food shortages days before the Brexit cliff edge.
India, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, Russia and Jordan suspended travel for Britons after Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned that a mutated variant of the virus, up to 70 percent more transmissible, had been identified in the country. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Oman closed their borders completely.
China has noted relevant reports and will study carefully to ensure healthy and orderly exchanges between Chinese and foreign personnel based on scientific and proper treatment, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said on Monday.
Hong Kong will deny entry to visitors who have stayed for over two hours in Britain during the past two weeks, starting Tuesday.
Several other nations have suspended travel from Britain including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Belgium, Israel and Canada — although scientists said the strain may already be circulating in countries with less advanced detection methods than the United Kingdom.
The discovery of the new strain, just months before vaccines are expected to be widely available, sowed fresh panic in a pandemic that has killed about 1.7 million people worldwide and more than 67,000 in Britain.
Australia said two people who traveled from the United Kingdom to New South Wales state were found to be carrying the mutated virus.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo urged the US government to take steps to prevent the new strain entering the country, which has been worst hit by COVID-19 with almost 318,000 deaths.
“It’s high time the federal government takes swift action, because today that variant is getting on a plane and landing in JFK, and all it takes is one person,” he said.
US Assistant Health Secretary Brett Giroir said nothing had yet been decided on any travel ban.
France shut its border to arrivals of people and trucks from Britain, closing off one of the most important trade arteries with mainland Europe.
There were rising hopes that France would allow traffic to flow again, if truck drivers took coronavirus tests on arrival.
Experts from across the 27-nation European Union discussed the new variant.
As families and truck drivers tried to navigate the travel bans to get back home in time for Christmas, British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s said shortages would start to appear within days if transport ties were not quickly restored.
“If nothing changes, we will start to see gaps over the coming days on lettuce, some salad leaves, cauliflowers, broccoli and citrus fruit — all of which are imported from the continent at this time of year,” Sainsbury’s said.
The travel ban caused chaos in Kent, the southeastern English county that is home to many of Britain’s English Channel ports. The government urged against travel to the county, but trucks snaked along the shoulders of the main highways to the ports anyway.
Around 10,000 trucks pass through Britain’s port of Dover every day, accounting for about 20 percent of the UK’s trade in goods. British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said France’s ban was “slightly surprising” but insisted that the public won’t notice any shortages “for the most part.”
Johnson canceled Christmas plans for millions of British people on Saturday, though he said there was no evidence that it was either more lethal or caused a more severe illness.
The new variant and restrictions in Britain compound the chaos as the country prepares to finally part ways with the European Union, possibly without a trade deal, when the Brexit transition period at 2300 GMT on December 31.
The new variant, which scientists said was 40-70 percent more transmissible, has rapidly become the dominant strain in parts of southern England, including London.
Experts stressed, though, that there was no evidence that vaccines, including the one made by Pfizer and BioNtech being deployed in Britain, would not protect against this variant.
Cases of the new strain have also been detected in some other countries, including Italy and the Netherlands. Some scientists said the prevalence discovered in Britain might be down to detection.
