Covid 19 coronavirus: UK avoids Christmas food shortage after France lifted travel ban

The UK has narrowly avoided a national food shortage after France agreed to allow thousands of truck drivers to travel between the two countries again.

France issued an immediate travel ban for all people coming from the UK earlier this week, days after health authorities discovered a mutated strain of coronavirus.

The new strain is 40 to 70 percent more transmissible than the original virus, the World Health Organization said.

The second new fast-spreading strain was discovered in South Africa and has since spread to the UK.

UK authorities tightened lockdown rules overnight, with 24 million people ordered to stay home under Level 4 lockdown rules. Another 25 million people are on Level lockdown. 3.

Meanwhile, tempers rage in the critical English port city of Dover.

Truck drivers complained they were trapped, they needed a negative coronavirus test to leave the UK, but were unable to get one.

Numerous European countries closed their borders to the United Kingdom on Sunday amid a surge in cases and with the new strain spreading rapidly.

In England, soldiers were being deployed for a massive test program to deal with the massive truck jam.

France agreed today to relax the temporary travel ban, as well as other EU nations, provided that anyone wanting to leave the UK can show a negative Covid-19 test that is no older than 72 hours.

The travel ban raised concerns that the UK could be hit by a shortage of some fresh food just days before Christmas.

“We have worked hard with the British authorities to allow ships, trains and also planes to restart safely from tomorrow,” said Transport Minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari.

He said he was “finalizing a protocol” to allow the statement to take effect and urged truck drivers to wait for more announcements.

Despite the progress in the talks, the congestion around Dover is unlikely to ease anytime soon.

Britain had pushed for driver testing as part of its solution to the impasse.

More than 2,800 trucks are stranded in the county of Kent, in the south of England, unable to cross into France, and drivers have spent a second night sleeping in their taxis.

As night fell on Tuesday, the drivers of about 800 trucks parked at a nearby disused airport honked their horns for more than half an hour in protest.

More than 50 countries banned travel from the UK following the discovery of the strain.

The European Commission previously urged EU countries to lift travel bans imposed on Britain, where the spread of the new variant of the coronavirus has sparked global panic just as vaccines are being rolled out across the globe.

The UK is facing one of its biggest battles for health in history as the nation faces thousands of cases and a new strain causing panic across Europe.

The UK’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, admitted earlier this week that the new strain, which has been shown to be more than 60 percent transmissible than the original strain, had now spread “all over the place” across the world. country.

“It’s more transferable, we have to make sure we have the right level of restrictions in place,” Vallance said.

“I think the number of the variant across the country is likely to increase, and therefore I think the measures are likely to have to be increased in some places, not reduced.”

Professor Robert West, a health psychologist at University College London, told The Guardian that the nation is facing “economic, human and social disaster.”

West called on the UK to reset its coronavirus strategy, something that would likely be costly, but would save many lives.

“We need to reset our strategy and move quickly to zero [Covid-19] strategy of the kind that many have been proposing, “he said.

“It sounds expensive, but the alternative could well be a catastrophic collapse in confidence in the country’s ability to control the virus and the economic, human and social disaster that would follow.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has come under fire for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 68,000 UK citizens have lost their lives due to the pandemic, and the nation has one of the highest death rates in Europe.

British scientists advising the government also observed increased transmission in children compared to other strains, and are working on this hypothesis to explain its rapid spread.