Countries bar travelers from U.K. over virus-mutation fears
Countries across Europe and beyond began closing their borders to travelers from the United Kingdom on Sunday, and the European Union set up a crisis management meeting, a day after Britain’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, ordered a wholesale lockdown on London and surrounding areas, citing concerns of a new fastspreading variant of the coronavirus.
Train stations in London on Saturday night filled with crowds of people scrambling to leave the city to escape the new restrictions, which went into effect at midnight and effectively quarantined the capital and other areas from the rest of the country, the harshest measures to be taken since the country’s first lockdown in March.
Sunday, Britain’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, called those who packed trains “clearly irresponsible.” He also said the restrictions Johnson imposed could be in place for months.
The first wave of coun
tries to bar travelers from the United Kingdom were in Europe. The Netherlands said it would suspend flights from Britain from Sunday until Jan. 1, noting that the variant found in England “is thought to spread more easily and more quickly.”
Italy also suspended air travel from Britain, and Belgian officials on Sunday enacted a 24-hour ban on arrivals from the United Kingdom by air or train, which could be extended. Germany is drawing up regulations limiting travelers from Britain as well as travelers from South Africa, where a similarly contagious version of the virus has emerged. Austria, Ireland, France and Bulgaria
also announced bans.
Spain asked the EU for a coordinated response, and senior officials from the bloc’s 27 member states met by video conference Sunday evening to share their plans. They agreed to decide on any coordinated action at the crisis management meeting, to be held Monday morning.
Within hours, more countries took action. Iran suspended flights to Britain for two weeks, Reuters reported. Israel barred foreign arrivals not only from the U.K., according to The Times of Israel, but also from South Africa and Denmark, where a virus mutation that occurred in mink was transmitted into the human population.