France halts UK food and drink imports due to super-infectious coronavirus strain Britain is heading towards international isolation as several Member States impose travel restrictions on UK travellers and France suspends freight traffic across the Channel.
A new, highly contagious strain of coronavirus in the UK is sparking fear across Europe.
Concentrated in London, South East- and the East of England, the new strain is thought to be 71% more transmissible than other variants.
When the UK’s New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) met on 18 December, they noted the new strain could be responsible for an increase in the R-value (the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average) from 0.39 to 0.93.