MOSCOW, December 20. /TASS/. The issues of air service with the United Kingdom, where a new coronavirus mutation has been detected, is under control, a spokesman for the anti-coronavirus crisis center told TASS on Sunday.

"The situation is under control of the anti-coronavirus crisis center. All decisions on that matter will be announced when taken," the spokesman said.

Air service between Russia and the United Kingdom was resumed from August 1. Regular flights between Moscow and London are performs by Russia’s Aeroflot and British Airways.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on December 14 that a new variant of the coronavirus had been identified by British researchers and that this newly-identified variant "may be associated" with the faster spread in the south-east of England. Prime Minister Boris Johnson told a news conference on Saturday that, according to preliminary data, the new strain could be by 70% more transmissible, adding however that no evidence to its bigger lethality were available.

On Saturday, the United Kingdom’s death toll from the coronavirus infection exceeded 67,000, Europe’s second highest mortality after Italy, and the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases exceeded two million.