With Britain “banning” flights coming from areas of Africa where new cases of the COVID-19 mutation, dubbed the “Botswana mutation”, have already been recorded since the first case was recorded, logistics is once again on alert. This is because it is known that China has announced ‘zero tolerance’ measures for outbreaks with regard to its port operations and it is unknown at this time whether additional measures will be taken at ports for the new mutation.
However, today at its meeting the World Health Organisation (WHO) will meet to examine the level of risk of the new mutation which from early assessments appears to ‘threaten’ vaccine immunisation. It is obvious that a new pandemic outbreak would create problems for freight flows if outbreaks occur in key ports in China, the EU and the US. Experts on intermodal transport issues, however, awaiting the moves of the WHO and the states against the new threat noted that there will probably be new disruption without certainty of the horizon that with the mutations known so far had been determined for the normalization of the situation in logistics from the middle of the second half of 2022 onwards.
In the “field” of reflection on the “bypass” of new measures with cross-border controls and ports in possible new underutilization has been the issue of railways. Although the volumes involved cannot be compared with those transported by ship, the rail solution is clearly superior to road transport and capable of providing a solution on European territory by exploiting the vertical and horizontal rail axes that run through European territory, linking ports of key importance and beyond. However, developments are awaited with interest.
Source : theseanation.gr