COVID-19: UK's 'red list' travel ban begins, 55 more cases of B.1.617 variant reported

The “red list” COVID-19 travel restrictions for travellers from India began on April 23 banning the entry for Indian nationals in the UK and requiring British, Irish citizens and long-term UK residents returning home to undergo a 10-day hotel quarantine. The ban came into force as the UK recorded 55 fresh cases of India’s double mutant coronavirus strain, B.1.617 from all infections tracked until April 14. This has further mounted the total Variant Under Investigation (VUI) in the UK to 132. The last flight before the ‘red list’ categorisation of India among 40 such nations landed at Heathrow Airport in London from Delhi on Thursday evening.

As per reports, Heathrow had previously confirmed that it turned down the requests for at least eight additional flights that were aiming to land in the UK before the 4 AM (local time) cut off on Friday in order to avoid the long queues and crowd. Even the individuals who landed in the UK before the categorisation will now have to self-isolate at their homes while taking follow-up COVID-19 tests for the National Health Service (NHS) to contact trace.

"After studying the data, and on a precautionary basis, we've made the difficult but vital decision to add India to the red list. This means anyone who is not the UK or Irish citizen... cannot enter the UK if they have been in India in the previous 10 days," Hancock previously told British MPs. Even UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson cancelled his trip to India next week, said Downing Street on April 19. India reported 3,32,730 new COVID-19 cases with 2,263 in the last 24 hours, as per Union Health Ministry’s statement on April 23. Meanwhile, the nation’s caseload has surpassed 1.62 crores while the fatalities have mounted to 1,86,920

10-day Quarantine For Indians Landing In France

Not just the UK, in the wake of the COVID-19 surge in India, French government spokesperson Gabriel Attal on April 21 said that France will be imposing a 10-day quarantine for travellers arriving from India in the upcoming days to prevent the spread of COVID-19. The move of restricting travel from India came just days after France announced the suspension of flights from Brazil to protect the European nation from P1 or Brazilian variant of novel coronavirus. It also announced quarantines for passengers from Argentina, Chile and South Africa. 

Image credits: Twitter/AP