LONDON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st December, 2020) UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said on Monday that the ban on travel and freight from the UK imposed by France and other European countries out of fear of a new strain of coronavirus identified in southeast England, will not impact on the UK's COVID-19 vaccination program as vaccines come in unaccompanied containers.
"No, there is no issue there at all (...) This won't have an impact on the vaccination programme," Shapps told Sky news broadcaster.
The minister explained that although there are about 6,000 vehicles already stuck in Dover on Monday as a result of the ban imposed by France on Sunday, virtually all the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines that the UK started to roll out two weeks ago come in containers unaccompanied by hauliers.
"Most of vaccines doesn't come by what is called RO-RO -roll on, roll off-, which is what we are talking about here. It's not usually accompanied by a driver, by a haulier. It comes on those containers," he explained, adding that about half a million people in the UK are believed to have had their first dose of the vaccine so far.
On Saturday, the UK government practically put large parts of the country, including London, under another lockdown, after admitting that more than half of all new COVID-19 cases had been caused by a mutated coronavirus strain that can transmit up to 70-percent faster.
As UK citizens rushed out of the locked down areas ahead of Christmas, many countries in Europe and beyond chose to close borders with the whole of the United Kingdom in a bid to prevent the import of the new strain.
According to Shapps, the UK government is working with France to resolve the transport ban as soon as possible, amid fears that if the ban lasted longer than 48 hours it could result in a food shortage before Christmas. The official expressed hope that the ban will not last longer than 48 hours.
"The reality is that it is probably elsewhere already, we know it is elsewhere already (...) it's already been found in several other European countries," Shapps added.
The UK has confirmed a total of over 2 million cases, including 67,401 fatalities.
