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And while Britain and France were taking steps on Monday to minimize threats to the food supply — about a quarter of all the food eaten in Britain is produced in the European Union — many people in Britain saw the travel ban and port closures as their worst fears about their country’s post-Brexit fate come true.

And sooner than expected.

“Psychologically for me, there was already that barrier in place because of Brexit,” said Russell Hazel, who was ill with the virus for seven weeks earlier this year. “Now, there’s a physical one.”

Mr. Hazel said that a good friend was visiting Spain. Now, he worries about how the friend will make it back home.

The confusion, Mr. Hazel said, feels like a “dry run” for Britain possibly crashing out of the European Union without a deal governing future commercial relations across the English Channel.

For their troubles, Britons largely blamed Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

After locking down Britain later than other European countries in the spring, a decision that led to one of Europe’s highest per capita death rates from the virus, Mr. Johnson’s government encouraged people over the summer to return to their offices. It even subsidized meals out at restaurants.

That helped set the stage for a resurgence of the virus.

Even so, as recently as Wednesday, Mr. Johnson was pledging to stick with a policy of special allowances for Christmastime travel. Streets in London were thronged with shoppers. And the government took legal action to prevent schools from sending students home early for the holidays in the midst of soaring infections.