Belgium, France, Ireland and Holland banned travel from UK

[RudolphToldRedNoseNotSymptom]

List is growing longer. Wow. We're being well fucked now.

Oh well, we're an island, we'll be fine. Nothing to see here. When will our own fucking government stop making us the embarrassment of the world and prevent outward travel?

But our schools have stayed open and no masks mandated in classrooms so the government has achieved its goal. Bravo. slow hand clap. We have so much to be proud.

Can we buy things from abroad? Will they still come here on like.. oh I don't know what planes they get here on! (I'm being serious... I have an order coming from France )

@OpheliasCrayon

Can we buy things from abroad? Will they still come here on like.. oh I don't know what planes they get here on! (I'm being serious... I have an order coming from France )

Freight is usually flown over in passenger flights - depends how much inbound air traffic there's going to be. If your order is coming by road/ferry, then it'll probably end up stuck in the truck parks that used to be called Calais and Kent.

Only flights are banned, my friend’s travelling to the Netherlands today, flying to Germany then driving.

Closing the barn door after the horse has bolted. The new strain of covid will already be in mainland Europe.

German flights banned now.
Exempt from the ban are:

Repatriation flights of aeroplanes and their crews
Postal, freight or empty flights
Flights with medical personnel in the interest of public health

Genomics people who accidentally copy me in on long email chains I very slightly know are saying the new UK strain is already in Europe. The travel bans might slow down some ingress to France etc., but not for long.

I wish we banned flights in bound and outbound from the uk in March.

No one wants the England virus

Well if we couldn't obey lockdown, we're being locked out.

This is nothing to do with people sticking to or not sticking to lockdown. As with all viruses this particular one has mutated and the mutation in the UK (which just as easily could have happened anywhere else) is currently seen to be a particularly bad one. Just as countries had to take specific action with regards to a mutation in Denmark that was thought to be resistant to the current vaccines and candidates they are taking specific action to prevent this mutation.

All ferries from Uk except freight being banned by those countries also. Stormont has an emergency meeting later tonight, so looks like everything to NI will be banned also.

Makes me feel a bit claustrophobic

But yes it’s most likely there already

@StatisticalSense

This is nothing to do with people sticking to or not sticking to lockdown. As with all viruses this particular one has mutated and the mutation in the UK (which just as easily could have happened anywhere else) is currently seen to be a particularly bad one. Just as countries had to take specific action with regards to a mutation in Denmark that was thought to be resistant to the current vaccines and candidates they are taking specific action to prevent this mutation.

We have terrible infection rates, the highest excess deaths in europe and one of the highest death tolls in the world.

Hardly surprising that the virus mutates here.

We fucked around when we knew Kent had exponential infections and now we have spread this new strain, not only to the UK but to the RoW.

This is horrible. I'm on the other side of the channel to my whole family. It feels very unsettling...

Yes, first noticed in Kent, did nothing and allowed it to spread to London - where - let's be fair - all bets are off.

First noticed in September might I add - in Kent. 3 em days, no sorry, weeks, no sorry, MONTHS ago.

Rates are growing exponentially now in the Netherlands and Germany. They will be sequencing the genome now I hope. There is no way this strain is not already everywhere.

As it first showed up in the UK in Kent it's not impossible that it came there from continental Europe in the first place.

Whichever direction of travel, I'd say that the horse was long gone.

@amicissimma agree. How do they know it originated there or was brought into Kent.

Nc135 I suppose a cluster based in Kent would be a giveaway?

@RudolphToldRedNoseNotSymptom but how do they know that is where the mutation first happened vs it coming in from the continent.

Let's hope the UK govt haven't overstated the "new variant" risk in order to save face when they were forced to add a tier 4 for the SE and alter the Xnas guidelines then

What a fuck up that would be...

Yes anyfucker - I'm sure it's just the UK government making it up.