By Kaveesha Fernando
NEW DELHI, India (CWBN)_ The Civil Aviation Ministry of India has confirmed that flights arriving from the UK to India will be temporarily suspended owing to the new strain of COVID-19 discovered last week which the UK government has confirmed to be present in the UK.
“Considering the prevailing situation in UK. Govt. of India has decided that all flights originating from UK to India to be suspended till 31st December 2020 (23.59 hours). This suspension to start w.e.f. 23.59 hours, 22nd December 2020. Consequently flights from India to UK shall stand temporarily suspended during above said period. As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 23.59 hrs) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned,” the ministry tweeted a few hours ago.
A popular international media channel reported that the UK is home to a large Indian diaspora, with several flights taking hundreds of people between London and popular Indian cities such as New Delhi and Mumbai on a daily basis.
India is the second worst country to be affected by the pandemic in terms of total cases and fatalities, just behind the United States. The country recorded 10 million cases of COVID-19 just a few days ago. However, the state of the pandemic seems to be improving, with the rate of recovering overtaking the rate of new cases for a few days last month.
India joins many other countries which are halting inbound flights from the UK. The growing list includes European countries such as Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Switzerland, Finland, Latvia, Belgium, Estonia, Bulgaria, Lithuania Croatia, and Romania. Several Middle Eastern countries have also banned UK flights: namely, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Kuwait, Israel and Turkey. The three countries which have banned flights from the UK in South America are Argentina, Chile and El Salvador. Canada and Morocco have also banned flights from the UK.
France has even banned cargo coming in from the UK. Many see the move as having been caused by the failure of Brexit talks rather than fears over the transmission of the virus from goods and surfaces.
In a statement released over the weekend. Chief Medical Officer for England Professor Chris Whitty said that the UK identified a new variant of COVID-19 through Public Health England’s genomic surveillance. Preliminary modelling data and rapidly rising incidence rates of the virus led the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group (NERVTAG) to consider the new strain as one which can spread more quickly than the previous strains, he said, adding that the UK has alerted the World Health Organization (WHO). “There is no current evidence to suggest the new strain causes a higher mortality rate or that it affects vaccines and treatments although urgent work is underway to confirm this. Given this latest development it is now more vital than ever that the public continue to take action in their area to reduce transmission,” he said.
Additionally, the UK government has also confirmed that they will be working with the governments of other nations to ensure that the situation is handled as best as possible.
