- Indian government has suspended all flights from the United Kingdom after reports that the country has seen a new strain of COVID-19, which has been termed as a "super spreader".
- The Ministry of Civil Aviation also announced that all passengers arriving from transit flights from the UK will have to take mandatory RT PCR tests on arrival.
- On December 19, UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson had spoken about the new variant of the Sars-Cov-2 which scientists believed was “70% transmissible”.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation also announced that as a precautionary measure all passengers arriving from the UK in transit flights that will reach India before December 22, will have to take mandatory RT PCR tests on arrival.
Earlier, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal too had urged the central government to ban all incoming flights from the country "immediately".
On December 19, UK’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson had spoken about the new variant of the Sars-Cov-2 which scientists believed was “70% transmissible”. Following the announcement, an immediate lockdown was announced in London.
Within a day, Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Italy had all suspended flights from the UK. They were followed by France, Bulgaria, Belgium, the Irish Republic, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Switzerland and Canada, who have now all suspended their flights from the UK.
On Monday morning, India’s Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan had said that there is no need to panic as the government is alert on the issue.
So far, the UK has reported a total of over 2 million (2,046,161 to be precise) coronavirus cases.