Covid border chaos: Travel ban lifted but Operation Stack still needed for thousands of lorries in Kent | Updated: 17:24, 24 December 2020 The Ministry of Defence has confirmed 320 members of the armed forces have been brought in to get hauliers out of Kent. The army has been drafted in at several testing sites across the country with 1,400 currently supporting the response to the pandemic. French firefighters have been deployed to assist in testing at Dover (Aaron Chown/PA) Despite the travel ban being lifted nearly two days ago, it's been challenging to get the backlog cleared. Ferry company DFDS has only been able to take 144 lorries home since the border reopened despite having capacity for 4,000.