UK virtually isolated by emergence of new, more contagious strain – Telam

United Kingdom, more than ever an island

Fear of scarcity and isolation added to health paranoia in Britain on Monday after France closed its borders and more countries banned flights to the UK due to a new strain more contagious of the coronavirus which has forced London and the south to be confined from England.

The French decision, which will last at least 48 hours, has triggered a wave of concern as thousands and thousands of trucks have been prevented from crossing the Channel by the Eurotunnel, as have the hundreds of ships that sail from a side. to another carrying goods.

A large supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s, has announced that if France maintains its decision to close the passage of lorries that travel the Calais-Dover route through the Eurotunnel – inactive since Sunday afternoon – “food shortages will begin to occur. produce in the following days, especially fresh foods like lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli or citrus. “

Several branches of the chain were packed with customers early Monday, with people filling their cars.

On the contrary, Scottish seafood exporter Lochfyne has denounced the blockade of trucks laden with live fish worth “millions of pounds” to the mainland as a “disaster”.

Thousands of trucks are waiting for the Eurotunnel which connects the United Kingdom to the continent to be able to run again.

“If we spend 48 hours, we won’t arrive in time for Christmas delivery,” which for these products is “the biggest market of the year,” he said on Twitter.

Huge traffic jams were also spreading in Kent County in south-eastern England, where at least 6,000 trucks remained stranded.

However, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson assured at a televised press conference after the end of the government crisis meeting that the blockades “only affect goods carried by humans”, and referred to that many containers they travel alone by boat.

“This (only affects) 20% of the total that arrives or goes to the European continent, which means that the vast majority of food, medicine and other supplies come and go normally,” he added.

Johnson also reported that he had communicated with French President Emmanuel Macron, and that the two leaders are seeking “to resolve these issues as quickly as possible”.

In Europe, and particularly in the UK, the vaccine is the real hope.

Likewise, British authorities have assured that while the country has reservations, they fear consumers will be swept away by panic four days after the holidays, which in places like London have been mutilated by the emergence of this new strain. virus.

London faces this new context practically isolated by the prohibition of flights to and from the United Kingdom, a measure to which is added, in addition to France, a long list of countries, including Spain, Portugal, Canada, India, Hong Kong, Russia, Morocco and Poland, Argentina, Peru, Colombia and Chile and Israel.

They were joined this afternoon by Paraguay, which adopted this measure in principle for two weeks in order to “safeguard the health of the population and the stability of the health system”, according to a statement.

Other countries, like Switzerland, have imposed a quarantine on travelers from the UK, which is retroactive for arrivals after December 14.

This variant of the virus is said to be up to 70% more contagious, although it is not yet proven that it is more deadly, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), which has warned that it could also affect “the effectiveness of certain diagnostic methods”.

However, the organization’s head of health emergencies, Michael Ryan, said on Monday that this new variant “is not out of control” and called for continued application of health measures that have already been shown to be effective. .

His statements referred to those of the British Minister of Health, Matt Hancock, who assured yesterday that “the new strain of the coronavirus was out of control”.

Health measures were reinforced before the appearance of the new strain, which is 70% more contagious.

Ryan urged to “tighten controls” in Europe because several cases of this new strain have been detected outside UK territory, for example in Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Australia and Israel – where a patient who had been re-infected with the new variant died virus and South Africa.

US officials have said they are monitoring “very carefully” the variant of the virus that is spreading in the UK, but do not currently consider banning travel to or from the country.

On Monday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave its approval to the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine, so that the vaccination campaign in the European Union (EU) begins on December 27.

The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Singapore and Switzerland are among the fifteen states that have already authorized the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine.

In contrast, EMA experts on Monday confirmed the opinion of their counterparts in the United States and various European countries who consider that the current vaccines against the coronavirus are also effective for this variant.

“At the moment, there is no indication that this vaccine (from Pzifer / BioNTech) will not work against the new strain” of coronavirus, said the director general of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Emer Cooke.

The UK already started its general Pzifer / BioNTech vaccination campaign two weeks ago.

The emergence of this new strain couldn’t come at a worse time for the UK, also mired in negotiations over its post-Brexit relationship with the EU, which appear to be at an impasse.

The UK on Monday reported a record number of daily infections, with 35,928 new cases, nearly double the average of the roughly 18,000 cases detected daily the week before.

Festivities will be kept to a minimum and meetings should only take place between people of the same household, even on Christmas Day, in the capital and in the south and south-east of the country.