The Union Health Ministry called for an emergency meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group (JMG) on Monday morning after panic spread over a new mutant strain of coronavirus that is “out of control” in the Kingdom. Kingdom, according to officials.
The JMG meeting will be chaired by the Director General of Health Services (DGHS). The representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in India, Dr. Roderico H Ofrin, who is also a member of the JMG, is likely to participate in the meeting, according to the PTI news agency.
More than 16 million Britons will have to stay home for Christmas after Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who was adamant until Friday that nearby households could mingle over the holiday period, made a U-turn and canceled plans. to allow families to see each one. other. When new restrictions came into force in London after the government warned of the new strain, several European Union nations banned flights from the UK on Sunday.
While the Netherlands announced a ban on all UK passenger flights, Belgium issued a 24-hour flight ban and also stopped train links to Great Britain.
France suspended all travel links with the UK for 48 hours starting at midnight on Sunday and all flights from the country were banned from Ireland for a period of 48 hours. According to the BBC, Italy blocked all flights from the UK until January 6. Germany, Kuwait, Israel and Austria have also imposed similar restrictions.
Meanwhile, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned that preventive measures could be maintained until the virus vaccine is fully implemented. “We act very quickly and decisively,” he said. “All the different measures that we have in place, we need more of them to control the spread of the new variant than to control the spread of the old variant,” he added.
The JMG, which was formed by the government to review the global and Indian situation after the virus outbreak and provide recommendations on technical matters to the health ministry, will discuss the issue of the mutated variant of the coronavirus reported from the UK.
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