Britain finds another coronavirus variant with links to South Africa
Britain has detected a new variant of the coronavirus in contacts of cases who have traveled from South Africa, UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Wednesday.
Hancock also announced more areas in England would be placed into the highest tier of coronavirus restrictions.
South Africa’s health department said last week that a new genetic mutation of the virus had been found and might be responsible for a recent surge in infections there.
“Thanks to the impressive genomic capability of the South Africans, we’ve detected two cases of another new variant of coronavirus here in the UK,” Hancock said. “Both are contacts of cases who have traveled from South Africa over the past few weeks.”
Britain is already battling to curb the spread of a mutated strain of the virus which is up to 70 percent more transmissible, and Hancock said the new variant appeared to have mutated further and was more infectious.
He said close contacts of those with the new variant were being quarantined and all those who had been in South Africa in the last fortnight also needed to quarantine.
He also said immediate restrictions was being imposed on travel from South Africa.
From Saturday, regions across southern England would join London and neighboring areas in Tier 4 with restrictions similar to that of a lockdown.
Countries across the globe are shutting their borders to Britain after the emergence of a highly infectious new coronavirus strain. China Southern Airlines, China’s largest airline by passenger numbers, will suspend flights to and from London from December 24 until January 7. The airline has been operating a weekly flight between Guangzhou and London.
Meanwhile, France and Britain reopened cross-Channel travel on Wednesday after a 48-hour ban to curb the spread of a new coronavirus variant but London has warned it could take days for thousands of trucks blocked around the port of Dover to get moving.
The major transit hub reopened following an agreement between London and Paris to allow hauliers stranded in the UK to leave the country if they could produce a negative coronavirus test that was less than 72 hours old. A handful of passenger vehicles disembarked from two ferries in Calais on Wednesday, but port management said traffic was not expected to pick up until later.
Drivers stand in front of police officers as they block the exit at the Port of Dover, Britain, as EU countries impose a travel ban from the UK following the coronavirus outbreak.
British Communities Secretary Robert Jenrick said around 4,000 trucks may be waiting in the county of Kent to cross the Channel and urged other truckers not to head there until the backlog is cleared.
With no sign of traffic to the European mainland resuming and confusion over how to get a coronavirus test, TV footage showed drivers honking their truck horns and flashing lights in unison in protest.
As tempers flared in Dover, there were brief scuffles between a small number of police officers and drivers, many who do not speak English and are angry that they will not be able to get home before Christmas.
“This is not how it should work. We have no information, the people need to be fetching information,” Mekki Coskun from Dortmund in Germany, said. “No information ... they get worried.”
