Last checked at 
* India, Hong Kong join slew of nations cutting travel with
UK
* Follows UK discovery of new highly infectious virus strain
* British supermarket Sainsbury's warns of shortages of some
foods
* Sterling, stocks and bond yields tumble
* Chaos comes as Britain is due to exit EU's orbit on Dec.
31
By Gerhard Mey and Ben Makori
DOVER, England, Dec 21 (Reuters) - More countries closed
their borders to Britain on Monday over fears of a highly
infectious new coronavirus strain, heightening global panic,
causing travel chaos and raising the prospect of UK food
shortages just days before the Brexit cliff edge.
India, Poland, Switzerland, Russia and Hong Kong suspended
travel for Britons after Prime Minister Boris Johnson warned
that a mutated variant of the virus up to 70% more infectious
had been identified in the country, while Japan and South Korea
said they were monitoring the situation.
A slew of countries have already suspended travel, including
France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland,
Belgium, Israel and Canada.
The discovery of the new strain, just months before vaccines
are expected to be widely available, sowed fresh panic in a
pandemic that has killed about 1.7 million people worldwide and
more than 67,000 in Britain.
Australia said two people who travelled from the United
Kingdom to New South Wales state were found to be carrying the
mutated virus.
Johnson will chair an emergency response meeting on Monday
to discuss international travel, in particular the flow of
freight in and out of Britain. EU officials held a meeting on
coordinating their response.
France shut its border to arrivals of people and trucks from
Britain, closing off one of the most important trade arteries
with mainland Europe.
As families and truck drivers tried to navigate the travel
bans to get back home in time for Christmas, Britain's
second-largest supermarket chain, Sainsbury's, said
gaps would start to appear on shelves within days if transport
ties were not quickly restored with mainland Europe.
"If nothing changes, we will start to see gaps over the
coming days on lettuce, some salad leaves, cauliflowers,
broccoli and citrus fruit – all of which are imported from the
continent at this time of year," Sainsbury's said.
Shellfish producers in Scotland said they had tonnes of
perishable products stranded on roads as the French border was
closed. Disruption in Britain will also snarl supplies to
Ireland.
"No driver wants to deliver to the UK now, so the UK is
going to see its freight supply dry up," France's FNTR national
road haulage federation said.
The global alarm was reflected in financial markets.
European shares slumped, with travel and leisure stocks
bearing the brunt of the pain; British Airways-owner IAG
and easyJet fell about 8%, while Air France KLM
lost about 7%.
The British pound tumbled 2.5% against the dollar, and was
on course for its biggest one-day drop since March, while the
yield on two-year UK government bonds hit a record low.
Britain's tabloids bemoaned the crisis.
"Sick Man of Europe", the Daily Mirror newspaper said on its
front page beside a picture of Johnson while the Sun newspaper
said "French show no merci".
NEW MUTATION
Johnson cancelled Christmas plans for millions of British
people on Saturday due to the more infectious strain of the
coronavirus, though he said there was no evidence that it was
either more lethal or caused a more severe illness.
The new variant contains 23 different changes, many of them
associated with how it binds to cells and enters them. British
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said Britain had done some of
the best global analysis of the mutations of the virus so it was
simply seeing what was already at large in other countries.
Shapps said getting the bans lifted as swiftly as possible
was his priority but that given British preparations for the end
of the Brexit transition period on Dec. 31, the country was well
positioned for disruption.
The British government triggered plans it had for stacking
up trucks in the southeast county of Kent - part of its plans
for potential disruption when the United Kingdom exits the EU's
orbit with - or without - a trade deal at 2300 GMT on Dec. 31.
Talks on a Brexit trade deal were due to continue on Monday.
"This is a serious situation as the stockpiled goods
expected here are for Christmas and to help stabilise January,"
Jon Swallow, a director of the British logistics group Jordon
Freight, told Reuters.
"This shows how fragile the cross-channel route is."
ASIAN INFECTIONS
The new virus strain has been identified in Britain at a
time when COVID-19 cases have surged in several Asian countries
that had previously successfully contained the pandemic. The
spikes have prompted localised lockdowns in some countries and
more aggressive testing.
South Korea, which imposes a 14-day quarantine on everyone
entering the country, said it was reviewing new measures for
flights from Britain, and would test twice those coming in from
there before they were released from quarantine.
New cases climbed to over 1,000 a day in South Korea several
times last week. It reported on Sunday an outbreak in a Seoul
prison where 188 inmates and staff were infected.
Thailand said on Sunday it was testing tens of thousands of
people, and extended curbs on movement, following its worst
outbreak yet that began at a market in a province that is a
centre of the seafood industry and home to thousands of migrant
workers.
Australia, where cases in Sydney have flared in recent days,
cancelled dozens of domestic flights on Monday. New South Wales,
which has reported 86 new local cases since Thursday, ordered
more than a 250,000 people into a lockdown, though officials
stressed the infections were not the UK strain.
(Additional reporting by Toby Melville and James Davey in
London, Laurence Frost in Paris; Sayantani Ghosh in Singapore,
Josh Smith and Sangmi Cha in Seoul, Renju Jose in Sydney, Shilpa
Jamkhandikar in Mumbai and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Writing by
Guy Faulconbridge and Pravin Char; Editing by Alison Williams)
