DOVER • The European Commission threw Britain a lifeline yesterday after it became stranded in Covid-19 isolation, recommending that EU members roll back sweeping border closures to allow freight to resume and let people return home for Christmas.
Much of the world shut their borders to Britain after a mutated variant of the coronavirus was discovered spreading swiftly across southern England, halting a chunk of trade with the rest of Europe and leaving truckers stranded.
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.
The EU's executive body has advised that non-essential travel to and from Britain should be discouraged, but said people heading home should be allowed to do so, provided they undergo a Covid-19 test or quarantine for 10 days.
"Blanket travel bans should not prevent thousands of EU and UK citizens from returning to their homes," European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said in a statement.
Rapid turnaround lateral flow tests on lorry drivers with the help of the British military are expected as part of the measures to unblock cross-channel trade between Britain and France, British media reported yesterday.
Mr Johnson and his advisers said the mutated variant of the coronavirus, which could be up to 70 per cent more transmissible, was spreading rapidly but that it had been identified because British scientists were efficient at genomic surveillance.
The BBC cited France's Europe Minister Clement Beaune as saying that Britain and France would announce a deal to restart freight by today.
"We speak to our colleagues in France constantly on a range of issues and that work has been under way over the last 24 hours and we'll continue today," British Home Secretary Priti Patel told Sky News.
The discovery of the new strain, just months before vaccines are expected to be widely available, sowed a fresh wave of panic in a pandemic that has killed about 1.7 million people worldwide and more than 67,000 in Britain.
Scientists say there is no evidence that vaccines currently being deployed in the UK - made by Pfizer and BioNTech - or other Covid-19 shots in development will not protect against this variant, known as the B.1.1.7 lineage.
The United Kingdom is in effective Covid-19 quarantine just nine days before it is due to part ways with the European Union after a transition period - considered to be one of the biggest changes in post-World War II British history.
Countries across Europe and beyond have suspended travel from Britain since the weekend.
Cases of the new strain have also been detected in some other countries, including Denmark and Italy.
Britain's border crisis led to some panic-buying in the country: shoppers stripped shelves in some supermarkets of turkey, toilet rolls, bread and vegetables.
While the government said there was enough food for Christmas, market leader Tesco and No. 2 player Sainsbury's both said food supplies would be affected if the transport disruption continued.
Sainsbury's and Tesco are exploring all options to keep supplies flowing, including the use of planes for some fresh-vegetable shipments instead of truck ferries, while Deutsche Lufthansa may add dedicated freighter flights to the UK Eurotunnel, which operates the Channel Tunnel rail link between Britain and France.
Talks are also under way about running extra freight trains.
Lorry drivers said they just wanted to get back home in time for Christmas.
"My chances of going home for Christmas are going down. It's stupid and I am nervous and unhappy about that," said Mr Stanislaw Olbrich, a 55-year-old Polish trucker who was stuck 40km north of Dover.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, XINHUA
