Current affairs

India-UK flights to resume amid the spread of COVID variant: What you must know?

By alagu, 02 January, 2021
India, United Kingdom, COVID-19, COVID-19 mutant

Amid the spread of the COVID-19 variant in the country, the Indian government has decided to resume flight operations to and from the UK, weeks after suspending the services in the wake of the COVID-19 variant which emerged from the UK and got the grounds of spread across and beyond Europe. 

Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri has on Friday announced that the flight operations between India and the UK will be resuming from January 8 and only 30 flights per week will operate between the two countries till January 23. The Minister said Indian and the UK carriers will each be operating 15 flights per week between January 8 to 23 to and from Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Hyderabad. 

Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Hardeep Singh Puri said, "Resumption of flights between India & UK: India to the UK from 6 Jan 2021.  The UK to India from 8 Jan 2021.  30 flights will operate every week. 15 each by Indian & UK carriers.  This schedule is valid till 23 Jan 2021. Further frequency will be determined after review."The United Kingdom has emerged as the epicenter of the new Coronavirus variant and several countries are seriously concerned about the spread amid celebrating the New Year. Several countries had suspended flight operations between the UK in the wake of the variant. The British government had imposed a lockdown in its territory and it has worryingly admitted that the COVID-19 variant is getting out of control. 

As a precautionary measure, the Indian government had on December 21 banned the flight operations to and from the UK. The ban on direct and transit flights came to effect from December 23 and the ban was initially imposed till December 31. The Central government and all the state governments made testing mandatory at the airports and installed norms for quarantine. Days ahead of the deadline of the ban, the Central government had extended the suspension of UK flights till January 7. 

However, India has reported the spread of the COVID-19 variant with dozens of people testing positive for the new Coronavirus, which spreads more faster than the COVID-19. According to the Union Health Ministry, a total of 29 people have tested positive for the new variant so far as of Friday. An official of the health ministry said that all the 29 persons are in physical isolation in health facilities. 

The government has made RT-PCR tests mandatory for travelers and their family contacts and it has initiated comprehensive contact tracing for co-travelers, family contacts, and others. However, amid the spread of the COVID-19 variant, the Union Aviation Ministry has on Friday said that the flight operations between India and the UK will be resumed from January 8 with only 30 flights per week. 

The Indian government took cognizance of the reports of the virus reported from the UK and initiated a proactive and preventive strategy to detect and contain the mutant variant. The health ministry has on December 22 issued the standard operating protocol for states and UTs to tackle the COVID-19 variant. On Tuesday, the health ministry said that samples of all international passengers who arrived in India from December 9 - 22 and the positive cases will be subjected to genome sequencing to understand how the new virus variant spreads.

According to reports, the presence of the new UK variant of the virus has already been reported by the United States, Australia, Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, Singapore, and Lebanon. 

 

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