The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org. December 21, 2020 U.K. Increasingly Isolated After Highly Infectious Coronavirus Strain Prompts Strict Lockdown --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Canada, Russia and India have joined a growing list of countries that are banning U.K. travel after British health officials warned a new, highly infectious variant of the coronavirus is sweeping the country and is "out of control." London and the southeast of England have gone into a strict lockdown. British officials claim the new variant could be 70% more contagious but is not thought to be more deadly. Many scientists are skeptical of the claim, which has not been peer-reviewed, and researchers say there's no evidence the mutation will impact the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines. .