UK grapples with truck tailback triggered by new virus strain

The United Kingdom and France were working on Tuesday on a solution to clear a tailback of 1,500 trucks on the approaches to the UK's Port of Dover.

The huge lineup began forming on Sunday after the government of France closed its border with the UK because of its concerns about the spread of a new strain of the novel coronavirus that had been identified in the London area.

The strain, known as B.1.1.7, is thought to be similar to the main strain but much more easily caught, and is therefore spreading fast in the Southeast of England.

More than 40 countries immediately closed their borders to travelers and freight from the UK after hearing about the variant on the weekend.

The closure of the border between the UK and France stoked fears in Britain that shortages of commodities might soon follow. But the problem has been eased slightly by the fact that other major freight-handling ports, particularly Harwich in the county of Essex and Felixstowe in the county of Suffolk, have continued to operate because of their links to European nations that have not closed their borders and because they handle cargo that is transported without accompanying drivers.

Home Secretary Priti Patel insisted on Tuesday that the blocked border between the UK and France would soon be reopened.

She said on the BBC's television news program Breakfast that the introduction of testing for truck drivers for evidence of COVID-19 disease would be the key to shifting the logjam.

"Getting those tests up and running can happen relatively quickly," she said.

Patel later told Sky News: "It's in both our interests, both countries, to ensure that we have flow and of course there are European hauliers right now who want to be going home."

But France's Europe minister, Clement Beaune, said any such arrangement would need the agreement of both Prime Minister Boris Johnson and President Emmanuel Macron and therefore would be unlikely to come into force until Wednesday. The British Retail Consortium responded by saying a reopening of the border on Wednesday would be adequate in ensuring the UK does not experience shortages.

Meanwhile, England's top scientist, Patrick Vallance, has said the new strain of the novel coronavirus appears to already be widespread.

He warned during a news briefing on Monday that the strict lockdown imposed on the weekend on England's Southeast region would likely soon need to be expanded.

"The transmission is increased," he said during the televised briefing. "We can't say exactly by how much, but it is clearly substantially increased, so it is more transmissible, which is why we see it growing so fast and spreading to so many areas."

Marc Van Ranst, a virologist from the Rega Institute for Medical Research in Belgium, told broadcaster VRT: "I think we will find in the coming days that a lot of other countries will find it."

He said the new strain may only have been identified in the UK because of the nation's sophisticated testing abilities and could be widely distributed globally.

But the experts say there is no evidence that the new strain is more deadly than the main strain, and the World Health Organization said in a statement that it had "zero evidence at this point" that vaccines that have already been developed will not work on the new strain.

The Financial Times quoted the German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, which developed one of the major vaccines being used on the novel coronavirus, as saying it believes its vaccine will work on the new strain of the virus.

European stocks seemed to react well to the reassurances, with Monday's sell-offs replaced on Tuesday with the UK's FTSE 100 index rising 0.4 percent in early trading.