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European Union officials will later discuss a coordinated response to a new, more infectious coronavirus strain in the UK, which has prompted many countries to impose travel bans.
Germany, France and Italy are among those suspending flights from the UK. Outbound train services through the Channel Tunnel have also been interrupted.
Canada is also blocking flights from the UK.
Health officials say the new variant is up to 70% more transmissible, but there is no evidence that it is more deadly.
There is also no evidence to suggest that it reacts differently to vaccines.
UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the new variant “was getting out of control”, while Denmark, Italy and the Netherlands announced that they had already detected it.
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The European Council of Government Representatives meeting is expected to take place at 10:00 GMT. The speed at which governments have announced their bans on UK travelers shows the scale of the alarm, reports Gavin Lee of the BBC in Brussels.
Also on Monday, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine that is already being administered in the UK and the US under emergency approval.
Which European countries have acted and how?
The Netherlands It said it would ban all passenger flights from the UK until January 1 “at the latest”. Ferry passengers arriving from the UK will also be banned, although loading will continue.
France suspended all travel links, including freight trucks, with the UK for 48 hours starting at midnight Sunday. Thousands of trucks move between countries every day.
In response to the French ban, Eurotunnel It said it would suspend access to its Folkestone terminal for traffic heading to Calais. People booked to travel on Monday can get a refund. Trains will continue to run from Calais to Folkestone.
The ferry terminal in Dover is now closed to all escorted traffic leaving the UK until further notice due to French restrictions. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson will chair a Cobra emergency response meeting to discuss the issue on Monday.
image copyrightfake imagesIn Ireland, which has significant passenger traffic with the UK at this time of year, the government announced that flights arriving from Britain would be banned for 48 hours from at least midnight.
He also said that “in the interest of public health, people in Britain, regardless of nationality, should not travel to Ireland, by air or by sea.” The cargo ferry crossings would continue.
In Germany, an order from the Ministry of Transport said that UK planes would not be able to land after midnight Sunday, although cargo would be an exception.
Belgium It said it would suspend flights and trains from the UK from midnight Sunday for at least 24 hours as a “precautionary measure”.
Italy is blocking all flights from the UK until January 6. Turkey has temporarily banned all flights from the UK as well as Switzerland.
Austria is to ban flights from the UK. Bulgaria It has suspended flights to and from the United Kingdom from midnight but, unlike short-term measures in many other nations, its ban lasts until January 31.
What is the situation in other places?
Canada It has suspended entry of all UK passenger flights for 72 hours, starting at midnight (05:00 GMT). Passengers arriving in Canada from the United Kingdom on Sunday will be “subject to secondary controls and enhanced measures, including increased scrutiny of quarantine plans,” he said.
Other countries to announce restrictions on travel to the UK include Israel, Iran, Croatia, Argentina, Chile, Morocco and Kuwait.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has suspended all international flights for a week because of the pandemic.
What do we know about the new variant?
The new variant was first spotted in September. In November, it accounted for about a quarter of the cases in London. This reached almost two-thirds of the cases in mid-December.
Three things come together that mean it’s getting attention:
- It is rapidly replacing other versions of the virus.
- You have mutations that affect part of the virus that is probably important.
- Some of these mutations have already been shown in the laboratory to increase the virus’s ability to infect cells.
All of these come together to build a virus case that can spread more easily. However, we do not have an absolute certainty. New strains can become more common simply by being in the right place at the right time, like London.
This variant is exceptionally highly mutated. The most likely explanation is that it arose in a patient with a weakened immune system who was unable to defeat the virus.
There is no evidence yet to suggest that the variant makes the infection more deadly, and for now at least, the vaccines developed are sure to work against it.
However, if the virus changes to avoid the full effect of the vaccine, then “vaccine leakage” occurs, and this may be the most worrying element.
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