Dover (United Kingdom) (AFP)

The United Kingdom slowly began to emerge from the isolation caused by a new strain of coronavirus on Wednesday, with a resumption of cross-Channel traffic under tension and which will take several days, to the chagrin of truckers stranded as Christmas approaches.

Thousands of them are preparing Wednesday evening to spend another night in the cab of their truck, without knowing exactly when they will be able to return home.

"They say there will be a Covid test for us" but "nothing will come", laments, very moved, Ezdrasz Szwaja, a Polish driver trapped, like so many others by the closure of the French border for 48 hours after identifying this potentially more contagious mutation.

A few dozen drivers, stranded since Sunday, often without toilets or hot meals, had tense and briefly muscular exchanges with the police early Wednesday morning.

A man obstructing a freeway was arrested.

A race against time has begun, with the help of the military, to conduct these thousands of rapid tests, to get the UK supply chain back to full swing before fresh food shortages emerge.

Eighty tons of fresh fruit and vegetables arrived in Doncaster, central England from Germany on Wednesday on a Lufthansa plane.

The products, stored in Frankfurt, risked "rotting" if nothing was done, a spokeswoman for Lufthansa Cargo told AFP.

According to the British Minister for Local Government Robert Jenrick, "it will take a few days to get us out of this situation".

According to the government, around 5,000 heavy goods vehicles were stranded in Kent on Wednesday, including 3,800 at the nearby former airport of Manston, where drivers can be tested.

- "Last" time in England -

"It was a first for me in England, and possibly the last," German Sergej Merkel told AFP, sitting in the cab of his truck, resigned to spending Christmas there.

If a driver is positive after a rapid test that delivers a result in about 30 minutes, they will be subjected to a PCR test and placed in hotel isolation for ten days if they are found to be positive again.

Confronted with a new wave of contaminations attributed to the new strain, partially reconfined and isolated by the decision of some fifty countries to cut their links, the United Kingdom has one of the heaviest results of the pandemic in Europe, with more than 69,000 deaths and a record of nearly 40,000 contaminations recorded on Wednesday.

The spread of the virus has prompted an extension of the re-containment in London over the weekend and parts of south-eastern England to other areas from December 26.

In total, 24 million people will then be subjected to confinement, or 43% of the population of England.

Added to this is the discovery of two cases in travelers from South Africa of another new variant of the virus "highly worrying" because it would be more contagious, according to the Minister of Health Matt Hancock who announced measures emergency to prevent its spread.

- Rationing -

Despite the crisis exit agreement with France, congestion in the port of Dover continues to fuel fears for supplying the country, which is very dependent on truck rotations.

"Until the delay is cleared and supply chains return to normal, we anticipate problems in terms of availability of some fresh products," said the organization representing the distributors.

Faced with this risk, amplified by Christmas shopping and some panic purchases that left store shelves empty, supermarket giant Tesco decided on Tuesday to ration certain basic necessities.

The fear is all the stronger as the days are numbered before the end of the post-Brexit transition period on December 31, the threat of serious disruption in the event of no trade agreement between London and the EU does being not yet completely dissipated even if a positive outcome is in sight.

© 2020 AFP