Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday asked the government to immediately ban all flights arriving from the United Kingdom amid the spread of a new strain of coronavirus that has emerged in the country.
In a tweet, Delhi CM said, “New mutation of corona virus has emerged in UK, which is a super-spreader. I urge central govt to ban all flights from UK immediately.”
Scientists first discovered the new variant in a patient in September, Susan Hopkins of Public Health England told Sky News.
Next month in November, they found the new strain was behind a cluster of cases in Kent which spread into London and Essex and informed the government on December 11.
The Health Ministry in India has called a meeting today of its joint monitoring group on COVID-19 to discuss the crisis.
Amid the reports of the spread of the virus, many European countries have banned flights to and from Britain.
Britain has warned this new strain of coronavirus was “out of control”, and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from Sunday.
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.
Yesterday, Saudi Arabia halted international flights and suspended entry through its land and sea ports for at least a week, after a new fast-spreading strain of coronavirus appeared in Britain.
The kingdom is “temporarily suspending all international flights — except in exceptional cases — for a period of one week, which can be extended by another week,” the official Saudi Press Agency said.
“Entry to the kingdom through land and sea ports will also be suspended for a week, which can be extended by another week,” SPA added, citing the interior ministry.
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 stands at 1,00,55,560 with total recoveries at 96,06,111. Out of these, 3,03,639 are active cases of Covid.