On the way to the port, an information board lights up over the highway: "Strict closure of the UK-France border."
You drive through the Nord-Pas-de-Calais department and expect that a terrible traffic jam of tens of kilometers from trucks is about to begin.
And everywhere is empty.
The port itself is hidden behind a double fence with barbed wire at the top - protection from migrants.
But no migrants, no cars.
Only a small accumulation of trucks before entering the next ferry and fine drizzling rain.
True, there are few people willing, but it turns out that you can sail to the other side of the English Channel!
But back - not yet.
Foggy Albion is now like a mousetrap, stepped on the shore - there is no way back.
Some complain that they had Christmas plans (and it was not too lazy for someone to build them at such and such a time), others - that the port treasury lost another thousand euros due to the loss of traffic and regular restrictions.
Antikovidniks go out to protests, the press competes over who will come up with the worst headline.
Truckers look the most relaxed against the background of general hysteria.
Those that had accumulated in Dover were divided into groups by Monday evening, which were escorted by the police to special parking lots.
And there - who took the chicken out of the foil, who took sandwiches, in general, no one was left without dinner, and they were already used to waiting.
You will have to sit around at least until Wednesday.
The French closed the crossing and the tunnel for two days.
And then they think, but, obviously, without a PCR test, they will not be allowed to the mainland.
Moreover, they will probably ask for him even in the UK before boarding a ferry or train.
One thing is not clear: where and how to do this test.
No dedicated centers or mobile laboratories are being built in or near Dover.
All efforts are now thrown into the search for patient zero.
In the Chinese province of Wuhan, it was never found, the British say that they seemed to be able to attack the trail of their first carrier.
Their search led them to Kent County, where Elmly Prison is located.
There was an outbreak there never seen before in the United Kingdom - as of December 12, 40 percent of prisoners were already sick with coronavirus.
And one of them had cancer.
The weakened organism, naturally, could not defeat the virus, and it lived in it for a relatively long time.
Such patients are usually treated with a plasma transfusion from a person who has been ill and recovered.
Often it helps, but in some cases the therapy does not work, the virus adapts to antibodies, mutates, and becomes smarter.
2-3 mutations per month is a standard story.
In this case, the mutation was immediately 23. That is, he learned to penetrate cells better, and therefore became 70 percent more infectious.
Kent County stretches from the southern suburbs of London to the port of Dover, and is the road to Europe.
Just a month ago, local residents were so relaxed that they even stopped wearing masks in supermarkets.
And now on this road at once four of the five largest foci of the spread of the new strain.
When an epidemic was already raging in the gardens of England, as Kent is often called, Boris Johnson calmly discussed from the podium in Parliament that it would be inhuman to deprive the British of the Christmas celebration in the family circle.
On Saturday, he radically changed his mind, introduced the maximum level of alarm and strict quarantine.
But it's too late.
The new strain has already taken over London and penetrated the mainland into the European Union.
It is said to have been found in Denmark, one case confirmed in Italy, four cases in Belgium.
I was surprised, of course, with what lightning speed Europe reacted, despite the fact that it was on the weekend.
The result is a domino effect.
Countries one after another pulled the brake valve and stopped air traffic with Great Britain.
And those passengers who managed to jump on the last board were not allowed out at home without checking.
It turned out not in vain.
For example, in ten people who arrived in Germany, the PCR test returned positive.
May the vaccine come with us, they decided at the European Medicines Agency and gave permission to Pfizer - BioNTech, which seems to be supposed to protect against the new strain.
Frightened by the British mutant, the Europeans, having closed, are now in a hurry to start vaccinations.
In Belgium, the start of the campaign was postponed as much as a week earlier than planned and they thought about making the process mandatory.
Well, for example - for those who do not want to restrict access to the labor market or to schools.
In Spain, they decided to keep a record of those who refuse to be vaccinated.
And the Australian airline Qantas, the first in the world, has already announced that only those who will get an injection from COVID-19 will be allowed on board its liners on international flights.
They can also introduce a separate health passport of the passenger.
I wonder what restrictions will eventually come up for the British and will they change after the country leaves the EU?
Was Europe's decision to barricade itself a sensible sanitary response, or was it more political?
There are still nine days left until the new year.
And there is still no deal, and all the deadlines have already passed.
The European Parliament said that even if the document is approved at the last moment, the MPs will not approve it - there will not be enough time to study tens of pages of a complex text.
Johnson refused to ask for an extension in the summer, the chances of a compromise are almost exhausted.
And then there's the mutant attacking, which the Belgian cartoonists portrayed with the head of the British prime minister.
In general, the current closure of the borders seems to have become a kind of dress rehearsal for the impending inevitable - the likely collapse on the day of the official divorce between the EU and the UK.
Which, by the way, will fit perfectly into the final scene of such a difficult year.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.