london prime minister boris johnson was to chair a crisis meeting monday as a growing number of countries blocked flights from britain over a new highly infectious coronavirus strain the uk said was out of controlthe world health organization also called for stronger containment measures across europe which has passed 500000 deaths from covid19but there was positive news across the atlantic where us lawmakers reached a deal for a nearly 900 billion covid19 financial package to help struggling americansin london johnson called the cobr emergencies committee meeting to discuss the situation regarding international travel in particular the steady flow of freight into and out of the uk a spokesman saidmore than a dozen european nations have already banned flights and travellers from britain with more expected to take actionhealth authorities in britains former colonial territory hong kong said uk flights would be banned from tuesdaycrucial transit country france moved to block people and goods crossing the channel while the netherlands said passengers arriving by ferry would be denied entrythe ban on all but unaccompanied freight crossing to france comes as companies scramble to shift merchandise with days to go until britain finally quits european union trade structures in the wake of brexitlate sunday britains critical south coast port at dover said it was closing to all accompanied freight and passengers due to the french border restrictions until further noticealarm bells were ringing across europe as the new even more infectious strain of the virus appeared to be raging in parts of britaina who spokeswoman told afp that across europe where transmission is intense and widespread countries need to redouble their control and prevention approachesa german government source said restrictions on air travel from britain could be adopted by the entire 27member eu and that countries were also discussing a joint response over sea road and rail linksfrench president emmanuel macron german chancellor angela merkel and eu chiefs ursula von der leyen and charles michel held a conference call on sunday about the matter macrons office saidlater sunday bans on flights from britain were imposed in the americas including by canada chile and argentinaus officials however signalled they were holding off on the move for now while australian prime minister scott morrison said he was confident existing 14day quarantine rules for arrivals were sufficient to handle the threatdespite growing concerns about the new strain eu experts believe it will not impact the effectiveness of existing vaccines germanys health minister jens spahn saidthe assessment was shared by britains chief medical officer chris whittyjohnson said the infectiousness of the new strain had forced him into locking down much of england over the christmas periodunfortunately the new strain was out of control we have got to get it under control health secretary matt hancock told sky newsscientists first discovered the new variant which they believe is 70 percent more transmissible in a patient in september public health england notified the government on friday when modelling revealed its full seriousnessthe novel coronavirus has