India had previously banned all flights from the UK until December 31.
New Delhi:
The Indian government on Wednesday extended the suspension of flights to and from the UK until January 7 amid alarms over the highly contagious new strain of the coronavirus.
“A decision has been made to extend the temporary suspension of flights to and from the UK until January 7, 2021. Thereafter, a strictly regulated resumption will take place, details of which will be announced shortly,” he tweeted the Minister of Aviation, Hardeep Singh Puri.
India had previously banned flights to the UK from December 23 to December 31.
According to the Health Ministry, 20 people who returned to India from Great Britain have so far tested positive for the new British genome variant of SARS-CoV-2.
The count includes six people who tested positive for the new strain of the virus on Tuesday that state governments held in isolation from a room in special healthcare facilities and their close contacts were also quarantined.
“A full contact tracing has been initiated for fellow travelers, family contacts, and others. Genome sequencing is ongoing on other specimens. The situation is under careful surveillance and regular advice is being given to states to improve surveillance, containment and testing. ” the ministry had said.
Cases of the mutant coronavirus have already been reported in Denmark, the Netherlands, Australia, Italy, Sweden, France, Spain, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, Japan, Lebanon and Singapore in addition to the United Kingdom.
The ministry said that from November 25 to midnight December 23, some 33,000 passengers arrived at various Indian airports from the UK. All of these passengers are being tracked and subjected to RT-PCR testing by states and union territories.
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