UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said Friday that British haulers were exempt from France's new coronavirus test rule that requires arrivals to get a negative PCR test before going to the country
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th January, 2021) UK Transport Minister Grant Shapps said Friday that British haulers were exempt from France's new coronavirus test rule that requires arrivals to get a negative PCR test before going to the country.
British media warned of an impending Channel port chaos in the morning after French Prime Minister Jean Castex questioned the efficacy of much quicker lateral flow tests. Speaking on Sky news, Shapps said the reports were "erroneous."
"I'm in a very close contact with the French, with my opposite number. What the French prime minister actually said was that border workers will be included and hauliers are excluded in that... That program's ongoing and for the time being it's lateral flow testing," he said.
The UK has tested 66,000 haulers, Shapps estimated. The results show that only 0.3 percent of truck drivers have the virus, much lower than the national average in the UK or France. He attributed this to the long-haul drivers' "solitary" lifestyle.
