New COVID variant: India suspends UK flights till December 31
Monday, 21 December 2020 (15:56 IST)
Countries across the globe have closed their borders to entrants from the United Kingdom as fears continued to grow over the emergence of a new variant of the coronavirus that has been circulating around Britain.
It began with the Netherlands over the weekend reacting to the UK announcement regarding the new strain. A number of other European nations, such as Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Romania and Ireland then followed suit by banning passenger flights from Britain.
Early Monday morning, Poland announced it would suspend flights from the UK starting at midnight. Denmark and Norway later both said flights would be halted for 48 hours starting immediately.
France has added sea and rail links to its restrictions on travel from the UK that will initially last 48 hours. Eurostar trains between London, Brussels and Amsterdam were also halted from Monday.
The restrictions on UK travelers were not only being applied within Europe. Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, Colombia, Kuwait, Israel, Canada and Saudi Arabia all imposed similar bans.
India said it would suspend all flights from the UK until December 31.
