Britain strives to lift France's freight ban
The United Kingdom was stuck in COVID-19 isolation on Tuesday (December 22) after much of the world cut off travel ties due to a highly infectious new coronavirus strain, snarling one of Europe's most important trade routes just days before the Brexit cliff edge.
With queues of trucks snaking to the horizon in England and supermarket shelves stripped just days before Christmas, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scrambled to get French President Emmanuel Macron to lift a ban on freight from Britain.
Many stranded truck drivers near the Port of Dover have now slept overnight in their trucks for two nights running after France imposed the ban on Sunday (December 20) night.
Johnson and his advisers said the mutated variant of the novel coronavirus, which could be up to 70% more transmissible, was spreading rapidly but that it had been identified because British scientists were so efficient at genomic surveillance.
