UK's Isolation

From Reuters:

“EU bosses throw isolated Britain a lifeline over COVID border closures”

The European Union executive threw Britain a lifeline on Tuesday after it became stranded in COVID-19 isolation, recommending that EU members roll back sweeping border closures to allow freight to resume and let people return home for Christmas. Much of the world shut their borders to Britain after a mutated variant of the novel coronavirus was discovered spreading swiftly across southern England, halting a chunk of trade with the rest of Europe and leaving truckers stranded. With queues of trucks snaking to the horizon in England and supermarket shelves stripped just days before Christmas, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson scrambled to get French President Emmanuel Macron to lift a ban on freight from Britain. Johnson and his advisers said the mutated variant of the coronavirus, which could be up to 70% more transmissible, was spreading rapidly but that it had been identified because British scientists were so efficient at genomic surveillance. Britain has been trying for at least 24 hours to hash out a deal with France to allow the Dover-Calais route to open.

The European Commission advised that non-essential travel to and from Britain should be discouraged but said that people heading home should be allowed to do so, provided they undergo a COVID-19 test or quarantine for 10 days. “Blanket travel bans should not prevent thousands of EU and UK citizens from returning to their homes,” European Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said in a statement. The recommendations are designed to set common rules within the EU and the ambassadors will consider adopting them on Tuesday. However, border controls are governed by national policy, so each EU country can have its own rules. One option is to roll out mass COVID-19 testing for truck drivers, though such tests usually take 24-48 hours for a result so it was not immediately clear how swiftly trucks could be moving again with Christmas days away.

^ This Covid Closure seems like a hint from the EU member countries of what the UK will be like if there is no Brexit deal by December 31, 2020. ^

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain/eu-bosses-throw-isolated-britain-a-lifeline-over-covid-border-closures-idUSKBN28W0OG