France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria, Ireland and Bulgaria all announced restrictions on U.K. travel, hours after British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that Christmas shopping and gatherings in southern England must be cancelled because of rapidly spreading infections blamed on the new coronavirus variant.
The British government said Johnson would preside at a meeting of the government's crisis committee, COBRA, on Monday in the wake of the other nations' measures. They come at a time of huge economic uncertainty for the U.K., less than two weeks before it leaves the EU's economic structures Dec. 31, and with talks on a new post-Brexit trade relationship still deadlocked.
The Netherlands banned flights from the U.K. for at least the rest of the year. Ireland issued a 48-hour flight ban. Italy said it would block flights from the U.K. until Jan.6, and an order signed Sunday prohibits entry into Italy by anyone who has been in the U.K. in the last 14 days.Beyond Europe, Israel also said it was banning flights from Britain, Denmark and South Africa because those were the countries where the mutation is found.
Studies are under way to better understand how fast it spreads and and whether "it's related to the variant itself, or a combination of factors with behaviour," she added. British health authorities said that while the variant has been circulating since September, it wasn't until the last week that officials felt they had enough evidence to declare that it has higher transmissibility than other circulating coronaviruses.
"While it seems to be more easily transmissible, we do not have evidence yet that this is a more deadly virus to an individual who acquires it," Vivek Murthy said on NBC's "Meet the Press." "There's no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will not be effective against this virus, as well."