To think Macron is ridiculous

[Dongdingdong]

These poor lorry drivers are very isolated anyway due to the nature of their jobs. The chances of them catching this new super strain and transmitting it are even slimmer than most people’s very slim chances. Macron’s decision to close the border is a hysterical overreaction and no doubt politically (Brexit) motivated. Open the borders and let them through!

Why is it so hard for lots on this thread to understand that yes the new strain maybe in Europe already but countries are trying to trace and isolate outbreaks.

Shutting their borders with the UK where it's quite frankly, running rampant, is very wise.

Trust me when I say most of us outside the UK are shaking our heads in disbelief at the shitshow going on there.

And mostly no one thinks Boris has done even a remotely ok job so far.

This is pretty clear in the article jasjas1973

"This kind of evolution or mutations like this are actually quite common," said Dr Ryan, who added that there were several questions about significant variants. He said that the UK officials were being very transparent and had already shared the variant's genome sequence.

@jasjas1973

Apart from having a vaccine available that the whole world can use (not just rich countries) and selling it at cost price?

Yea we've done nothing to help anyone during this....

*soon available

That should read

Why do people who think like you always want the British borders to close though? Bet you’ve posted comments like that on social media.
What would you want if there was a new strain in Brittany?

@Beccasb don’t be an idiot. No one in their right mind would want this situation, and if you bothered to read my OP I said that lorry drivers are very low risk anyway due to the solitary nature of their job - so allowing them to cross the border is very low risk. But you crack on with your stupid sweeping generalizations

The worst moment has been a French commissioner who stated it was a shame we had left the EU, as they could have helped us if we hadn't. Talk about xenophobic. Does that mean the French will not help any other country in thre world unless they are part of the EU? Well that's just a lovely attitude.

Er, what did you think leaving the EU involved? Of course we aren't going to be treated in the same way. That's what we wanted. Now our vaccines cost a tenner more each and we don't qualify for the aid available in the EU, but that's what you wanted, right? 🤦‍♀️

Don’t know why everyone is calling me a xenophobic nationalist. I have told someone whose ethnic origin I don’t even know that if they don’t like it in the U.K. they can go elsewhere. Hardly xenophobic.

I can’t be bothered with it all. It’s political, he can do what he wants. It’s only freight that’s driven in which is about 20% of what goes through Dover. Other ports are available. I don’t get why everyone is so hysterical over it. We can source goods from elsewhere. May take some time but we are not going to starve

China: we have a new killer virus
British public: Close the borders. Why havent we stopped all flights from china. Its a disgrace.

Uk: we have a new mutant variation of the virus. We are stopping all movement of people in London and kent to stop it spreading to the rest of the country
Macron: Err eekkk. We don't want a repeat of fucking up over china and italy. We best shut the border we share with kent. The french people have had enough and i must do what i can to protect them from unknown threats and follow the british lead in stopping movement of people from kent.
British: you cant do that! Thats not fair! You french should just suck up the unknown risk we have just shut down a 1/4 of the population for.

Errrr. Yes.

Ok...

Amazing logic going on here.

No Macron is doing his job, looking after french interests and the concerns of the french people first. Like id expect him to do. Even if those decisions aren't ones i agree with or are particularly good for me.

[quote Forgetmenot157]@jasjas1973

Apart from having a vaccine available that the whole world can use (not just rich countries) and selling it at cost price?

Yea we've done nothing to help anyone during this....[/quote]
What vaccine is that? The only one currently licensed and in use is Pfizer bioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.

Your not suggesting that’s a U.K. developed drug are you? Your not suggesting we’re shipping it out? It costs us £10 per dose more than EU countries pay.

I do think that you should stick up for the country you call home though. The French aren’t somehow morally superior to us because they haven’t got this covid strain. What they have done is cut off food supply lines which is an outrageous breach of our human rights.

I don’t blame macron at all. He has shown better leadership throughout than BJ.

I hope this latest disaster is a wake up call to brexiteers. Unbelievable arrogance and racism has got us to this point.

The cost of the EU pales compared to the catastrophic financial impact of poor tory leadership this year.

@ChloeDeckTheHalls

This is pretty clear in the article jasjas1973

"This kind of evolution or mutations like this are actually quite common," said Dr Ryan, who added that there were several questions about significant variants. He said that the UK officials were being very transparent and had already shared the variant's genome sequence.

Discovered in September, shared on Saturday?

Because in the U.K. we are horribly xenophobic against the French and this is never discussed.

It isn't one-sided, it's exactly the same the other way round as well.

@Splodgetastic

I do think that you should stick up for the country you call home though. The French aren’t somehow morally superior to us because they haven’t got this covid strain. What they have done is cut off food supply lines which is an outrageous breach of our human rights.

Oh fgs.

Our government has been saying for years we don't need Europe. We can no deal. We can feed ourselves. And rubbished anyone who questioned it.

You cant have it both ways and say 'fuck the eu we wont have a deal' and simultaneously say 'but what about our human rights'

Its been government policy to fuck trade with France!!!!

Yeah of course.

Yeesh. Xenophobic nationalism is not a good look @Splodgetastic**

A retort made by someone to try shut down or derail a discussion on SM (usually when it's not going the way they hoped it would). Not a good look either.

Discovered in September, shared on Saturday?

I think you need to read the article more carefully again as it doesn’t say that specifically.

It says in a separate part of the article, scientists spoke to WHO on Sat on the transmissibility of the new strain (which of course, they would not have been able to share that in Sept as they didn’t know that fact then-there have been many new strains of this virus!) but does not say when genome sequence itself was shared-just that they had already shared it.

As I said, do read around what has been happening with this new strain. It’s very interesting.

@Splodgetastic

I do think that you should stick up for the country you call home though. The French aren’t somehow morally superior to us because they haven’t got this covid strain. What they have done is cut off food supply lines which is an outrageous breach of our human rights.

They aren't cutting off our food supply - unaccompanied freight can still travel while they work out a protocol for the safe travel of accompanied freight.

Unbelievable arrogance and racism has got us to this point

What, it created some kind of hate vortex and allowed Covid to mutate? Some of you sound as though you would be happy to believe this.

They aren't cutting off our food supply - unaccompanied freight can still travel while they work out a protocol for the safe travel of accompanied freight.

Can we quote Grant Shapps and his 80% please.

Our own government are saying food is not cut off.

It’s not our ‘human rights’ to have European food?

Surely you should be growing your own turnips etc now? People are so uneducated about what food we actually produce here and I hope they wise up

I feel sorry for the drivers who just want to go home for Christmas.
They are the ones that will suffer here waiting in queues.
Matt Hancock's ' out of control' comment on Sunday didn't help at all either.
Whatever happens , I hope the drivers will get back and it's sorted out. It's not easy testing them all now : I think France will have to accept the new strain will be over there and probably already is : after all , the mink farms in Denmark had to be culled and nobody started closing borders when that was reported. This new strain has been circulating for a while it seems so i do not believe it's just come from the Uk although our own measures up to now haven't always been great to be fair.

The weather is bringing floods in the new year I heard today and they are hinting at food shortages in the new year ( which was always on the cards because of brexit) and now we have our new mutant strain causing more misery.
Floods famine and plague. It's becoming very biblical.

Amazing logic going on here.

@RedToothBrush funny, I haven’t seen anyone calling to close the borders to people transporting freight since the start of this crisis.

No Macron is doing his job, looking after french interests and the concerns of the french people first. Like id expect him to do.

Going by your rather dubious “logic”, I assume you would have liked to see our government close the UK borders to travellers (and those transporting freight?) back in February/March then?

@Forgetmenot157

The Oxford/Astrazeneca vaccine, when approved, will be a life saver, literally! and you are right, its cost to developing countries.

The Pfizer vaccine is being offered for free to African countries.

The UK has bought up over 600m doses of vaccines, the most by any country.

The UK has bought up over 600m doses of vaccines, the most by any country.

Well done us!