Covid-19: UK to ban travel from India
Premium- UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the ‘vital but difficult’ decision has been made due to a new covid variant first identified in India
The United Kingdom (UK) plans to ban travel from India due to the rising number of covid-19 cases, local media reported on Monday quoting the country's health secretary Matt Hancock.
Travel from India to the UK is being banned for non-UK and Irish citizens from 4am on Friday after the country was added to the travel red list, Sky News reported.
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Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced the "vital but difficult" decision has been made due to a new covid variant first identified in India, it added.
As a result, travelers from India will be refused entry into the UK unless they are British nationals -- who will then have to mandatorily undergo quarantine procedures.
According to Sky News, Hancock on Monday informed the UK's House of Commons that the country's authorities have been analysing samples from these cases to see if this variant has any concerning characteristics - like greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines - meaning it has to be treated as a variant of concern.
"After studying the data and on a precautionary basis, we've made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list."
A spokesperson of India's civil aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said that the decision was unfortunate.
India has seen an unabated rise in fresh covid cases in the last few days, with daily additions touching over one lakh. About 128,013 new cases were registered in the last 24 hours, according to data from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
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