India withdraws covid restrictions imposed on visiting UK citizens

New Delhi: The government has withdrawn a travel advisory that added COVID-19 related additional checks and restrictions on those arriving from the UK after the British government ordered discontinuation of mandatory testing and quarantine norms for those vaccinated with Covishield travelling from India.

In an official memorandum issued on October 11, the health ministry said that based on the evolving scenario, it has been decided that the revised guidelines stand withdrawn and the earlier guidelines on international arrival issued on February 17 shall be applicable to all travellers arriving in India from the UK.

According to the travel rules from February 17, airlines need to ensure negative RT-PCR before allowing passengers to board in case of those coming from the UK.

On arrival, they need to give a sample at Indian airport and exit. In case of a positive result, they need to be isolated and treated. For negative results, they need to be in home quarantine for 7 days and get re-tested.

On October 1, India had imposed a new rule that British nationals arriving in India, irrespective of their vaccination status, will have to undergo 10 days of mandatory quarantine from October 4 as part of the reciprocal actions initiated by the government following the vaccine certification row between the two countries.

India decided to impose reciprocal curbs against all British nationals arriving in the country as the contentious issue relating to the UK not recognising Indian vaccine certificates could not be resolved despite holding a series of technical-level talks.

The UK recognised Covishield vaccine produced by the Serum Institute of India but retained the 10-day quarantine period for fully vaccinated travellers from India. However, the move did not provide any relief from quarantine rules for Indian travellers vaccinated with two doses of Covishield.

Later, British officials said the UK has issues with India's vaccine certification process and not with the Covishield vaccine.

However, the UK last week decided to scrap tough COVID-19 quarantine travel rules for 47 destinations, including India.

Following this, India also withdrew the added Covid checks, restrictions on those arriving from the UK.

Meanwhile, India added 15,823 fresh coronavirus cases, taking the infection tally to 3,40,01,743 on Wednesday, while the national Covid recovery rate increased to 98.06 per cent.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,33,42,901, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.33 per cent.

The death toll reached 4,51,189 with 226 new fatalities that include 106 from Kerala and 43 from Maharashtra, the data updated by the Union Health Ministry at 8 am showed.

The daily rise in new coronavirus infections has been below 30,000 for 19 straight days and less than 50,000 daily new cases have been reported for 108 consecutive days now.

The active cases have declined to 2,07,653, the lowest in 214 days, comprising 0.61 per cent of the total infections while the national Covid recovery rate was recorded at 98.06 per cent, the ministry said.

A decrease of 7,247 cases has been recorded in the active Covid caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.19 per cent. It has been less than three per cent for the last 44 days.

The weekly positivity rate was recorded at 1.46 per cent. It has been below three per cent for the last 110 days, according to the ministry.

A total of 13,25,399 tests were conducted on Tuesday, taking the number of cumulative tests conducted so far for detection of COVID-19 in the country to 58,63,63,442.

The cumulative COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country crossed 96 crore with more than 32 lakh jabs administered on Wednesday. This is according to the 7 pm provisional report. The daily vaccination tally is expected to increase with the compilation of the final reports for the day by late night, the ministry said.