Air India says 'no decision' made on flights to UK as new COVID-19 strain spreads rapidly

Following the drastic spread of COVID-19 variant in the UK, Air India official on December 21 said that “no decision has been made” regarding the flights from the foreign nation as several European nations, Canada among others have banned flights from Britain in the wake of the “out of control” situation. France has halted all travels from the UK where the new virus strain can be found across the nation except Northern Ireland. Most recently, a traveller from the UK led Italy to detect the first case of the COVID-19 variant. Germany has also banned the trave from the foreign nation and is slated to last until December 31.

“As of now, no decision has been made regarding the flights to UK in view of the latest outbreak of COVID-19 cases in UK,” Air India official as quoted by ANI.

The nations which have banned travel from UK for at least two weeks in the wake of the situation include the following:

• Canada
• France
• Germany
• Italy
• Netherlands
• Belgium
• Austria
• Sweden
• Switzerland (halted travel from UK, South Africa)
• Bulgaria
• Romania
• Turkey (banned citizens from Denmark, UK)
• Iran
• Israel (barred citizens travelling from UK, Denmark and South Africa)
• Kuwait
• El Salvador
• Argentina
• Chile
• Morocco
• Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

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'No Need To Panic': Health Minister Harsh Vardhan

As the recent surge of cases of new coronavirus strain in UK has caused a stir across the world, Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on December 21 informed that “the government is alert” and that “there is no need to panic”. Over 1,000 cases of the coronavirus variant have been discovered in the past few days in England and majorly in the south of the country where British Health Secretary Matt Hancock had said can be connected to a surge in the cases. 

"The government is alert. There is no need to panic", said Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan on the discovery of the new strain of coronavirus in UK

Even the World Health Organisation (WHO) had said that it is aware of the new variant of COVID-19 but noted that there is still no evidence of the pathogen behaving any differently from the existing types of virus that have rocked the world since the beginning of 2020. Last week, WHO Emergencies Director Dr Mike Ryan had said in a Geneva news conference that authorities are still looking at the significance of the strain discovery and added, “We have seen many variants, this virus evolves and changes over time.”

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