Center extends temporary suspension of flights to and from the UK until January 7: Aviation Minister Hardeep Puri


Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri announced on Wednesday that the Center has extended the temporary suspension of flights to and from the UK until 7 January 2021. Flight operations were suspended due to a new Sars-CoV-2 virus strain. .

“A decision has been made to extend the temporary suspension of flights to and from the UK until 7 January 2021. Thereafter, a strictly regulated resumption will take place, details of which will be announced shortly,” he said Puri on Twitter.

India had suspended all flights from Britain last week until the end of the month, as the new variant of the virus detected in the UK prompted widespread concern and travel restrictions around the world.

“Taking into account the prevailing situation in the UK, the Government of India has decided that all UK-origin flights to India will be temporarily suspended until 31 December 2020 (11:59 pm). This suspension will begin at 11:59 p.m. on December 22, 2020, ”the Ministry of Civil Aviation had announced.

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The Union Health Ministry said on Tuesday that all international passengers who have arrived in India during the past 14 days, from December 9 to December 22 this year, if they are symptomatic and tested positive for the disease. of the coronavirus must undergo genome sequencing.

Also read: Four in Delhi test positive for the UK Covid-19 strain, isolated at Lok Nayak Hospital

So far, 20 cases of the new strain have been found in India, according to the Ministry of Health.

All infected people are now isolated, the Health Ministry said in a statement, adding that their fellow travelers and close contacts are being tracked and quarantined. Genome sequencing is currently being carried out on other samples.

From November 25 to midnight December 23, 2020, approximately 33,000 passengers disembarked at various Indian airports from the UK.

All these passengers are being tracked and subjected by the states to RT-PCR tests.

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