This Green and Septic Isle?

The discovery of a 'fast-spreading' variant of the Covid-19 virus in the SE of England, seems to have rendered the UK a pariah state (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/21/france-ban-uk-transport-surprise-says-grant-shapps-covid). Overnight, Belgium, Canada, Demark, France, Germany, Ireland and Turkey have banned passengers, travelling by air or ferry from the UK, from disembarking on their soil (forget 'safe corridors' and 'fast tracking'!). Perhaps even more worrying, is the French pre-Christmas 48 hour ban on freight hauliers from the UK. It is, of course, likely that French trucks will reciprocate by stopping coming here, if their drivers feel likely to be marooned. By all means tell people there are unlikely to be food shortages but don't expect a uniformly rational response. This limiting of travel from the UK, of course, underlines the importance of substantially curtailing travel within the UK to limit the spread of this variant. I would say, however, that there is an awful lot that we don't know about this strain of Covid. We cannot even be sure it originated in the UK. Suggestions, that it infects school-age children relatively easily, is worrying in relation to the reopenning of schools after Christmas. The 'take home message' to me, however, is that all countries really need to a) do everything to minimise transmission and b) vaccinate as widely and quickly as possible. Otherwise, we will have new strains with novel characteristics, popping up all over the place.