THE air corridor to Brazil has not been closed despite concerns about a new Covid strain and whether it is resistant to current vaccines.

Boris Johnson has insisted extra measures are being put in place to prevent the Brazilian coronavirus variant being imported to the UK, but travel corridors have bot been closed.

Home Affairs Committee chairwoman Yvette Cooper subjected the Prime Minister to intense questioning over border measures saying the nation could have “stronger quarantine and stronger checks like very many other countries do”.

“We were warned about the Brazil variant three days ago, we don’t know yet whether that will potentially undermine the vaccination programme so why aren’t you taking immediate action on a precautionary basis?” she asked.

Mr Johnson replied: “Well we are and we’re putting in extra measures to ensure that people coming from Brazil are checked and indeed stopping people coming from Brazil.”

Ms Cooper asked: “Are you, that’s a new announcement?”

“No sorry I said what we were looking at was the question of whether or not the Brazilian variant is immune resistant,” he said.

Pressed on whether this means a new travel ban being imposed on Brazil, he said: “We are taking steps to ensure that we do not see the import of this new variant from Brazil.”

Safeguarding Minister Victoria Atkins said the UK had acted “decisively” in the past over new variants of coronavirus found in Denmark and South Africa - despite action not being taken against the new Brazil variant.

When asked on Sky News why the air corridor between Brazil and parts of South America to the UK had not been closed off, she said: “Of course, people flying into the UK, whether from South America or elsewhere are required to have a 10-day quarantine period when they land in the UK. That is mandatory.

“In terms of the decision on travel measures, it takes a little bit of time.

“What we need to ensure is that when we make these very, very important decisions that have a huge impact on people’s personal lives, but also businesses, we have got to have a little bit of time to let that bed in.

“The Prime Minister was clear that measure will be taken, we have acted decisively in the past with both the Denmark and South African variants, so I wouldn’t want to speculate further at this stage.”

Boris Johnson has insisted extra measures are being put in place to prevent the Brazilian coronavirus variant being imported to the UK.

There remain many questions about the variant, including whether it would be resistant to the vaccines.

“There are lots of questions we still have about that variant, we don’t know, for instance, any more than we know whether the South African variant is vaccine-resistant," the Prime Minister told MPs yesterday.

Dr Hopkins said PHE experts were looking at the new variant that has emerged Brazil and needed to grow the virus in the UK in order to perform laboratory experiments.

“So we need to understand the biology of these (new strains), as well as understanding mutations.

“We will be watching them all to make sure that they can’t escape your immune response, which is the key thing that we’re looking at the moment.”

It comes as high street pharmacies are to begin rolling out Covid vaccines, as the virus death toll across the UK climbed above 100,000.

Boots and Superdrug branches will be among the six stores across England which will be able to administer the jabs from Thursday while the Government aims to hit its target of vaccinating all people in the four most vulnerable groups by the middle of next month.