New Delhi: The Union government imposed ban on UK flights from Wednesday onwards to December 31st, 2020. The passengers arriving from UK, before than will be tested on arrival at airports. Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the new variant had an unusually large number of genetic changes and the development “calls for enhanced epidemiological surveillance, enhanced containment” and other measures to effectively tackle the challenge.

Passengers on flights from Britain arriving before midnight tomorrow will be subjected to RT-PCR tests at the airport. Those who test positive will be sent to institutional quarantine while the rest will be asked to home-isolate for seven days.

“India has been seeing a sustained decline in the number of fresh Covid-19 cases for over two months now, accompanied by a decline in the number of deaths. In this scenario, any interjection of a SARS-CoV-2 variant virus through passengers with air travel history could pose critical risks for pandemic management in India,” he said.

Much is unknown about the strain, but experts say current vaccines should still be effective against it. Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said the government was fully alert about the new strain and stressed “there’s no need to panic”.