Coronavirus cases in US surge over 18 million

Europe scrambles to thrash out a response to a new strain of the coronavirus, while the caseload in the US topped 18 million.

Coastguard officers give bottles of water to truck drivers stuck on the M20 at Sellinge, England, after France closed its border with Britain. Picture: Getty Images

Europe scrambled on Tuesday to thrash out a co-ordinated response to a new strain of the coronavirus that has prompted an international suspension of travel links with the UK, while the caseload in the US topped 18 million.

With travellers in Europe facing a nightmare holiday season, EU ambassadors were to meet on Tuesday night to try to nail down a unified approach and work out how to eventually lift the border restrictions with Britain — including by imposing tests on all arrivals.

More than two dozen countries from India to Argentina suspended flight from the UK, offering a bleak reminder that the pandemic is far from over.

The World Health Organisation’s emergencies chief, Michael Ryan, tried to temper the alarm by stressing the situation was not “out of control”, shortly after a British minister used those exact words to describe the new spread of the new variant.

While experts say there is no evidence the UK variant of the virus — one of several mutations — is more lethal or will affect the impact of vaccines, it may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible.

Concern over the mutated strain sent European stocks, oil prices and the British pound plunging and transport changes unleashed chaos for travellers and truckers ahead of Christmas.

Thousands of people are still dying daily from the virus that has claimed at least 1.69 million lives since it first emerged in China late last year.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a crisis meeting after France announced a 48-hour blockade on people and freight — just as companies are racing to shift merchandise before Britain finally quits EU trade structures on January 1.

Yet Mr Johnson insisted that supply chains were “strong and robust”, with delays hitting only a “small percentage of food ­entering the UK”.

The UK has already begun to roll out the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and the EU will soon follow after formally approving the jab on Monday.

A rollout would begin across the bloc on December 27, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said.

EU regulators earlier noted there was no evidence to suggest the vaccine would not be effective against the new variant.

The UK strain has also been detected in small numbers in Australia, Denmark and The Netherlands. Another variant with similar genetic mutations has been linked to widespread transmission in South Africa.

There was currently “no evidence to indicate any change in disease severity, but this is also under investigation,” WHO said.

In the pandemic’s first border closure among Scandinavian neighbours, Sweden barred travellers from Denmark, in addition to the UK, because of the variant.

Elsewhere, Luxembourg decided to join European neighbours that are tightening virus lockdowns after Christmas.

Yet Hungary and Slovenia said they would relax some rules around the holiday to allow families to gather. While Russia, Spain, India and others joined the list of countries banning flights from the UK on Monday, Australia and the US have held off.

AFP