France and Germany were today accused of hypocrisy after pushing to keep British holidaymakers out of Europe this summer, despite the Indian variant already being on the rise in both nations.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron urged all EU states to follow their lead in making it mandatory for UK travellers to quarantine, regardless of whether they have been jabbed or not.
The bid to tighten the bloc's defences comes amid fears about the ultra-infectious Indian 'Delta' variant which has taken off far quicker in Britain than the rest of the continent.
But data shows prevalence of the mutant strain is growing exponentially in Germany and is accounting for up to 70 per cent of new cases in some regions in the South West of France.
Dr Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, told MailOnline the Franco-German stance was 'an attempt to close the stable door after the horse has bolted'. He said previous waves had shown overly-strict border controls between European countries cannot keep out new variants because they are so closely tied in trade, business and travel.
Nationally, the Indian variant only makes up 15 per cent of infections in Germany currently and cases are still trending downwards. But official data shows the proportion of infections made up of the Delta strain have doubled every seven days for the past three weeks.
French Government figures show 10 per cent of all new Covid cases are the virulent variant, but seven in 10 of new cases in the southwestern region of Landes, on the Atlantic coast. Landes is recording more than 50 Covid cases per 100,000 population in total which is double the national rate. It is also the only area in France where infection rates are climbing.
The situation in Landes has echoes of how the Indian variant was first seeded in the North West of England and spread around Britain from April.
Currently, those travelling from Britain to Greece, Spain and Portugal are not required to quarantine. Spain is letting Britons in without having to produce a PCR test.
The UK's hugely successful vaccination programme - which has seen more than 80 per cent of adults jabbed and 60 per cent fully vaccinated - means the majority of the population are protected from the Indian variant and less likely to spread it.
The UK's infection rate is trending in the opposite direction of those in France and Germany. The number of daily cases per million in Britain stands at 165, compared to France's 31 and Germany's 10
But the UK leads the way both in terms of how many first jabs it has dished out per person and also how many people it has fully vaccinated
The Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the German Government agency steering its Covid response, said today that the Indian variant accounted for 15 per cent of all new cases as of June 13. Although prevalence is still low, it is the third week in a row that the proportion of cases being made up by the variant have doubled
Angela Merkel (pictured with Emmanuel Macron at the G7 summit) has called on other European countries to force UK travellers to quarantine on arrival
Dr Clarke told MailOnline: 'The Indian variant is already in Germany, France and the rest of Europe and it will highly likely continue spreading, even without quarantine [for travelling Brits].
'Just as we've had regionalised hotspots it appears France does too, and I suspect other countries will do in time, as well.
'Our globalised and connected way of life in Europe means there's going to be people mixing in different countries and even if they don't come places where the variant originated, it will come from a third party country.'
He suggested that Britain was being punished for its world-leading surveillance capabilities which have seen it pick up on variants long before they are discovered by other countries.
'They [Germany and France] are neglecting the fact that Britain has good surveillance. Other countries don't have such good surveillance so it's entirely possible these variants are in other countries and they just don't know it yet.'
In a study published last week, French researchers warned that cases of the Indian variant were likely to have been underestimated because of its weak genomic sequencing capacity.