According to a survey revealed on Monday, 50 per cent citizens want bubble flights from COVID impacted countries to be suspended to limit the spread of mutated variant of novel Coronavirus from the UK and South Africa reaching Indian shores.

A survey was conducted by LocalCircles on 7,091 people after the news created ripples in India, which is already reeling under the burden of coronavirus infections with over 1 crore and 50,000 cases already.

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They were asked, “A new variant of coronavirus has been found in UK and South Africa which is more infectious. What should be India’s approach to bubble flight arriving from such countries?’

To this, 50 per cent participants said that they want bubble flights from impacted countries suspended while 41 per cent sought mandatory 14-day quarantine for arriving passengers.

Six per cent citizens said that India should continue with the current rules treating flights from these countries similar to others, while three per cent people voted ‘can’t say’.

On December 19, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had announced that the newly identified strain of the virus may be up to 70 per cent more transmissible while Health Secretary Matt Hancock emphasized that the new variant is “out of control”.

Britain has warned this new strain of coronavirus was “out of control”, and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.

The infectious mutation of the Covid-19 virus has caused serious concern around the world with Saudi Arabia, Italy, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, etc., having banned flights to and from the UK after the report of the mutant strain came to the fore.

Amid the spread of mutant coronavirus in the United Kingdom, the Health Ministry has called a meeting on Monday of its joint monitoring group on COVID-19 to discuss the crisis.

The World Health Organisation’s India representative Roderico H Ofrin, who is also a member of the monitoring group, is likely to participate in the meeting, it added.

As per the official data, India recorded 24,337 new COVID-19 cases with 25,709 recoveries and 333 deaths in the last 24 hours. The total cases now stand at 1,00,55,560 with total recoveries at 96,06,111. Out of these, 3,03,639 are active cases of Covid.

(With IANS inputs)