EDINBURGH, Scotland – On January 2, Boris Johnson was feeling pretty good about himself. Having just won a massive majority in last year’s festive elections, the British Prime Minister posted a thumbs-up photo of his grinning face with the caption, “This will be a great year for Britain.” With 2020 drawing to a close – with a mutant virus uprising across his country, Christmas canceled for millions, Brexit negotiations stalled and countries around the world banning any form of travel from Britain – it is fair to say the Johnson’s prediction was somewhat broad. the sign.
Britain is in an unparalleled crisis. Johnson’s gruesome weekend television speech, when he revealed that a new, seemingly faster-spreading strain of the coronavirus was sweeping through London, has had a knock-on effect around the world. More than 30 countries have slammed their doors to inbound UK travel – most seriously, France has closed the UK border for two days meaning no commercial freight transport can make its way from Europe, raising fears of immediate food shortages days before Christmas.
From Monday morning: France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Ireland, Austria, Portugal, Sweden, Belgium, Bulgaria, Turkey, Switzerland, Canada, Hong Kong, Israel, Iran, Croatia, Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have all announced a ban. No action has yet been taken in the United States – although New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has demanded new federal restrictions to prevent British flights from flowing into New York City airports.
But experts fear it could be too late to stop the mutated species of COVID racing around the planet.
Many questions about the British variant of the virus remain unanswered. Since the pandemic hit in March, the world has largely learned what to expect from the coronavirus – but now the rulebook is being frantically rewritten in Britain, where people are facing a mutated virus that appears to be much better at infecting people. There is no evidence that the mutation makes a COVID infection more deadly, but increasing transmission alone would be enough to put a strain on the country’s already creaky hospitals.
There is also no indication that the approved vaccines won’t work against the mutation, but that doesn’t mean scientists aren’t concerned about that prospect. Ravi Gupta, professor of clinical microbiology at the University of Cambridge, told BBC News, “If we make it add more mutations, you start to worry … few steps there. Scientists from the US Army are conducting their own tests to ensure that the vaccine is still effective against the British strain.
This isn’t just a British problem – despite travel restrictions, experts have suggested that the British species appears to be spreading so quickly that it could become the dominant species worldwide. Prof. Calum Semple, who is on the UK government’s advisory group, said the species “causes more disease more quickly” and is likely to “outperform other species” to become the most common around the world.
The effect of the mutation is already becoming apparent in Great Britain. New cases of coronavirus in the UK are up 35,928 on Sunday, almost double from seven days earlier. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the nation on Sunday that the species was “out of control.”
Johnson will chair an emergency relief meeting on Monday to discuss the unprecedented peacetime disaster. It couldn’t have come at a worse time – many British companies were already raging stockpiles before December 31, when the transition period for the Brexit transition with the European Union ends and new customs rules come into effect. It is still unclear what those rules will be as British and European negotiators failed to reach an agreement again this weekend. Johnson said during the Brexit referendum that Britain wouldn’t leave without a deal, but that promise appears to be on the verge of collapse.
The disastrous timing has also broken millions of people. Johnson had insisted on Wednesday that the planned five-day Christmas mingling window in the United Kingdom should continue. When the opposition got calls that day to cancel the plans, he ridiculed the idea, saying he wouldn’t dream of canceling Christmas. Three days later, he told the people in London that they should not visit friends and family. The rest of the country had reduced their visit window to just Christmas Day – although the the government has incited people not to use it.
Labor Party leader Sir Keir Starmer accused Johnson of “gross negligence” over his delay, saying the need to restrict the rules before Christmas had been “blatantly obvious” for weeks. Starmer repeated criticism of Johnson throughout his career – that he delayed making an “unpopular” decision until it was far too late. Videos of full London train stations Saturday night hours before new travel restrictions came in suggest he is right.
Obviously, this hasn’t been a “great year for Britain” – and the 10 remaining days of 2020 are expected to be the worst of the lot.