European countries banned flights from the United Kingdom on Sunday and the World Health Organisation called for stronger containment measures, as the British government warned that a highly infectious new strain of the virus was "out of control".
As the World Health Organisation urged its European members to strengthen measures against a new variant of COVID-19 circulating in Britain, European nations including Germany, Ireland, Italy, Austria, Romania, the Netherlands and Belgium said they were moving to block air travel.
A German government source said the restriction could be adopted by the entire 27-member European Union, and that countries were also discussing a joint response over sea, road and rail links with Britain.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson during a news conference in response to the ongoing situation with the COVID-19 pandemic. Source: Press Association
Rome and Berlin said on Sunday they would both be suspending flights to and from Britain from midnight.
The Netherlands imposed a ban on UK flights and Belgium said it would follow suit with a ban on planes and trains from the UK.
Alarm bells were ringing across Europe - which last week became the first region in the world to pass 500,000 deaths from COVID-19 since the pandemic broke out a year ago - after it appeared that a new, even more infectious strain of the virus was raging in parts of Britain.
Austria's health ministry told the APA news agency that it would also impose a flight ban, the details of which were still being worked out.
Travellers at Kings Cross St Pancras train station queue to board trains to Paris in London. Source: EPA
A spokeswoman for WHO Europe told AFP that "across Europe, where transmission is intense and widespread, countries need to redouble their control and prevention approaches".
Romania also said it banned all flights to and from the UK for two weeks starting Monday afternoon.
French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Charles Michel held a conference call on Sunday about the matter, according to the Elysee palace in Paris.
Alarm bells
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the infectiousness of the new strain had forced his hand into imposing a lockdown across much of England over the Christmas period.
"Unfortunately the new strain was out of control. We have got to get it under control," UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock told Sky News, after Johnson U-turned on his previously stated policy of easing containment measures over the festive season.
Scientists first discovered the new variant - which they believe is 70 percent more transmissible - in a patient in September.
Public Health England notified the government on Friday when modelling revealed the full seriousness of the new strain.
But Britain's chief medical officer Chris Whitty pointed out that while the new strain was greatly more infectious, "there is no current evidence to suggest (it) causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments, although urgent work is underway to confirm this".
The novel coronavirus has killed at least 1,685,785 people since the outbreak emerged in China last December, according to a tally from official sources.
And with the onset of colder winter weather in the northern hemisphere where respiratory diseases flourish, countries are bracing for new waves of COVID-19 with tighter restrictions, despite the economic damage such lockdowns wrought earlier this year.
