DOVER, England (AP) — Trucks inched slowly past checkpoints at the English port of Dover and headed across the Channel on Thursday to the French port of Calais, after France partially reopened its borders with Britain following a scare over a rapidly spreading new coronavirus variant.
Only a small fraction of the thousands of frustrated truck drivers and travelers have so far made it through the mass gridlock at Dover on Christmas Eve, held up by slow delivery of the coronavirus tests now demanded by France. One by one, trucks passed toward ferries and trains that link Britain with France, as authorities checked that drivers had the negative virus tests required to cross.