India temporarily suspends flights from UK amidst new coronavirus strain

New Delhi, Dec 21: India has decided to temporarily suspend all flights from United Kingdom amidst the new coronavirus strain.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation that flights from the UK to India shall remain suspended until 11.59 am on December 31. The suspension will come into effect from December 22 at 23.59 hours.

As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 11.59 pm) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at airports, the Ministry of Civil Aviation said.

Earlier, Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal urged the Centre to ban all flights coming from the United Kingdom after a new mutation of the coronavirus emerged in the UK, which is a super-spreader.

"New mutation of coronavirus has emerged in the United Kingdom, which is a super-spreader. I urge the central government to ban all flights from the UK immediately," Kejriwal said in a tweet.

"The new strain of novel coronavirus emerging in the UK is a matter of great concern. The government must take prompt action, prepare a contingency plan to contain the same and also immediately ban all flights from the UK and other European countries," Kejriwal said.

The government said that there is no need to panic. The government is fully conscious about everything. If you ask me, there is no reason to panic the way we are seeing in this press conference. I would say this to all that all these imaginary situations, imaginary talks, imaginary panic. Don't involve yourself in this, Union Health Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said.