New COVID-19 variant: Centre suspends flights to and from UK till January 7

On Wednesday, December 30, Union civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri stated that the Centre has extended the temporary suspension of flights to and from the United Kingdom till January 7, 2021, due to the new strain of the coronavirus. He further took to Twitter to inform the same.

Decision has been taken to extend the temporary suspension of flights to & from the UK till 7 January 2021.

Thereafter strictly regulated resumption will take place for which details will be announced shortly.

— Hardeep Singh Puri (@HardeepSPuri) December 30, 2020

Last week, India had suspended all flights from Britain until the end of the month with the new variant of the COVID-19 getting detected in the UK which triggered widespread concern and travel restrictions across the globe.

Moreover, after India reported 20 cases of the coronavirus with new variant from the UK, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan wrote a letter to all states of the country and directed them to maintain strict supervision in order to curb the "super spreader" in view of the New Year celebrations. The Health Ministry in its press release on Wednesday also recommended to the Civil Aviation Ministry to extend the suspension of UK flights to India till January 7, which it duly did.

Meanwhile, with over 1,000 cases of the variant discovered in the UK, scientists are puzzled to determine if the variant, named as VUI-202012/01, represents an increased health risk especially when some nations has now begun administering vaccines among people.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Health has also established the Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) for laboratory and epidemiological surveillance. It has also planned to expand the whole-genome sequencing of the coronavirus in the country which is to aid in the understanding of the contagious disease.

In addition to the flight from the United Kingdom, the government on Wednesday has extended the suspension on scheduled commercial international flights till January 31, 2021. The restrictions will not apply to international all-cargo operations and flights specifically approved by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). 

However, international scheduled flights may be allowed on selected routes by the competent authority on a case-to-case basis, the ministry said in a statement.