Top Chinese airline halts UK flights over highly contagious Covid-19 mutation

China’s biggest airline, China Southern Airlines, has suspended its upcoming flights to and from London in response to a strain of Covid-19 that has been rapidly spreading.

China Southern Airlines will suspend its London flights – which it runs once a week – between December 24 and January 7 for “preventative reasons” to stop the UK’s mutated Covid-19 variant from reaching its shores. That’s after Taiwan’s EVA Air suspended round-trip flights between Taoyuan and London on Tuesday.

The precautions are a stark change from earlier in the year, when Britain’s own top airline British Airways suspended its flights to China, which was then at the height of its struggle with the coronavirus.

China has since largely recovered for the virus, even holding festivals in the coronavirus ground zero city of Wuhan, while the rest of the world struggles to keep cases – and deaths – to a minimum.

Many countries have shut down their borders to the UK completely in an effort to stop the spread of the new variant, and truck drivers were left temporarily stranded at the French border – prohibited from entering – just days before Christmas.

Several US airlines have implemented greater measures for flights between the two countries in an effort to stop the spread – requiring negative Covid-19 tests from British passengers. But the United States has not closed its borders to the UK, with White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Anthony Fauci advising against such a move.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Saturday that Brits would not be able to “have Christmas as planned” due to the new strain, with London, East England, and South-East England being pushed up to a new Tier 4 lockdown that forbids people from meeting family and friends over the Holidays.

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