India extends suspension of flights to and from UK till Jan 7, 2021

The Union Ministry of Civil Aviation on Wednesday announced that flights to and from the United Kingdom will remain suspended until January 7, 2021. The decision comes on a day 14 more people tested positive for the new coronavirus variant that emerged from the United Kingdom, taking the total number of such patients to 20. The flights were first suspended from the night of December 22.

“Decision has been taken to extend the temporary suspension of flights to & from the UK till 7 January 2021. Thereafter strictly regulated resumption will take place for which details will be announced shortly,” Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri tweeted. 

The Minister had on Tuesday indicated that the suspension of passenger flights to and from the United Kingdom will be extended. The ministry had last week suspended all flights between the two countries from December 23 to December 31 over the mutated variant of the virus which is more contagious.

"I foresee a slight extension of temporary suspension of India-UK flights," the minister told a press conference on Tuesday. "In a day or two, we will find out if any additional steps need to be taken, or when we can start easing the current temporary suspension," he had said.

The Health Ministry said on Tuesday that the samples of all international passengers who arrived in India from December 9-22 and tested positive for COVID-19 will be subjected to genome sequencing, which helps in understanding how the new virus variant spreads and evolves.

The presence of the new UK variant has already been reported by Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, and other countries.

The Government of India took cognizance of the reports of the virus reported from the UK and put in place a proactive and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant, it said.

This strategy includes the temporary suspension of all flights coming from the UK with effect from the midnight of December 23 till December 31 and mandatory testing of all UK-returned air passengers through RT-PCR test. The samples of all UK returnees found positive in RT-PCR test will be genome sequenced by a consortium of 10 government labs i.e. INSACOG.