In a tweet, the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) said, “Considering the prevailing situation in UK. The Government of India has decided that all flights originating from the UK to India to be suspended till 31st December 2020 (23.59 hours).”

Considering the prevailing situation in UK. Govt. of India has decided that all flights originating from UK to India to be suspended till 31st December 2020 (23.59 hours).

— MoCA_GoI (@MoCA_GoI) December 21, 2020

All the passengers of the flights that are arriving in India from the UK till Tuesday will have to be tested on their arrival to detect the new strain of coronavirus.

“As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from the UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 23.59 hrs) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned,” the government said.

“This suspension to start w.e.f. 23.59 hours, 22nd December 2020. Consequently, flights from India to the UK shall stand temporarily suspended during the above said period,” it said.

India has become the 10th country to suspend travel to and from the UK over the new coronavirus variant detected in the country after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that an infection was fast spreading in England. According to health experts the new strains of coronavirus is reportedly up to 70 percent more infectious.

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Vaccines are underway and they are still effective against the new strain. Although the new strain is any more deadly, people are highly worried because this mutation appears to be 70 percent more infectious.

The new variant, which has been named VUI-202012/01 (the first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020), is thought to have first occurred in mid-September in the country’s southeast, in the capital London or the county of Kent.

Susan Hopkins of Public Health England said the agency notified the government on December 18 when modelling revealed the full seriousness of the new strain. The UK submitted its findings to the World Health Organization the same day.

Since then it spread quickly, becoming the dominant form of the virus there.

In London , 62 percent of cases were due to the new variant in the week of December 9. The rapid turn of events forced UK government to enforce stricter lockdown measures over the coming Christmas period. UK Health Minister Matt Hancock said the new lockdown measures might stay in place for some time.

Scientists says the new strain contains 23 changes , many associated with alterations in a protein made by the virus.

Patrick Vallance, the UK’s chief scientific adviser, said the new variant may be in other countries as well but might have started in the UK.

In a bid to stop the new strain from spreading, The Netherlands and Belgium banned travellers from the UK.

Dutch authorities said they had at found at least one case of the new strain and flights carrying UK passengers have been banned until January 1. Belgium is suspending flight and train arrivals from the UK for at least 24 hours, according to Prime Minister Alexander De Croo who spoke to Belgian television channel VRT.

Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on Twitter that cases of the mutant strain were lower in Scotland “than the rest of the UK,” but warned, “preventative action may be necessary to stop the faster-spreading strain taking hold.”

More than 67,000 people have died of COVID-19 to date in the UK, making it one of Europe’s worst-hit along with Italy.

Italy has also detected a patient infected with the new strain of the coronavirus, the health ministry on Sunday informed. The patient and his partner returned from the United Kingdom in the last few days with a flight that landed at Rome’s Fiumicion airport and were now in isolation, the ministry said.

Meanwhile the Health Ministry of India’s top advisory body will meet urgently on Monday to discuss the new strain of novel coronavirus in the United Kingdom. Reports suggest that experts from AIIMS and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), along with a representative from the World Health Organisation(WHO) will attend the meeting.

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