Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Oct 1: In a ‘tit-for-tat’ treatment to the British government, India has decided to impose reciprocity on the United Kingdom nationals requiring a mandatory 10-day home quarantine on arrival in the country irrespective of their Covid vaccination status.
The new regulations will come into effect from October 4, the same day when the British government restrictions on Indian nationals come into force in the UK. The British government had earlier announced that it did not recognize the vaccine certificates issued by the Indian authorities and all Indian citizens on arrival in the UK would be treated as “unvaccinated” requiring mandatory 10-day quarantining and two Covid tests at their own expenses.
Official sources said on Friday that from Monday all UK nationals arriving in India from the UK, irrespective of their vaccination status, would have to undergo mandatory home quarantine for 10 days upon arrival. They will also have to undertake pre-departure RT-PCR test within 72 hours before travel, again at the airport on arrival and then on day 8 after the arrival.
The move comes as the UK despite being cautioning by the Indian government refused to include India in the last of the countries whose vaccines are recognized by the UK. This meant that the people vaccinated with Covishield — the Indian variant of the vaccine developed by the UK’s Oxford University along with the pharma company AstraZeneca and manufactured under licence in India, would be subject to restrictions applying to the unvaccinated.
From October 4, England’s current ‘traffic light’ system to screen those entering the country from red, amber or green countries — based on levels of Covid-19 risk — will be scrapped and replaced with a single red list. So, from that day, besides the US and Europe, travellers from 17 countries with eligible vaccines, including Australia, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia, will be cleared to enter the UK if they have been vaccinated with one of the four approved vaccines — Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, or Janssen. India is not yet on that list.
After External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar took up the issue with the with newly appointed British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, the UK updated its travel guidance “clarifying” that the formulations of “Covishield” qualify as an approved vaccine but not the certificates issued by India.
This means that Indian travellers will continue to be treated as “unvaccinated” and will still have to take a pre-departure RT-PCR test, further RT-PCR tests on Day 2 and Day 8 of arrival, and self-isolate at their destination address for 10 days after entry. India in a reciprocal action has decided to treat the UK nationals arriving in India exactly in the same manner irrespective of their vaccination status.
The UK government recently revised its travel guidelines to be effective from October 4 and initially did not mention Covishield in the list of its approved vaccines. Then it included Covishield in the list but did not give approval to CoWin certificate which testifies the vaccination status of someone who has received the jab in India. This brings doubly vaccinated Indians travelling to the UK to the status of unvaccinated travellers and all alike will have to undergo quarantine in the UK if the vaccine certificate is not accepted.
Several rounds of meetings took place between Indian and UK representatives and one was attended by National Health Authority chairman RS Sharma and UK high commissioner Alex Ellis. After the meeting, both expressed satisfaction and said there seems to be no problem regarding Covishield or the certificate. Reports said India is mulling to add the full date of birth on the certificate for people travelling abroad.
However, the ‘reciprocal’ move indicates that the issue over Covishield has not been resolved. India strongly condemned the move of the UK government as it clarified that there is no problem with either the Covishield vaccine or the vaccine certificate. Covishield is a formulation of the Oxford-Astrazeneca vaccine which India also exported to the UK and the certificate conforms to all standards stipulated by the World Health Organization, the government said.
As the health ministry will enforce the new guideline specific to UK travellers, all states and UTs that have international airports and thereby may receive flights from the UK have been alerted. The integrated disease surveillance programme Officers in the States have been informed because they will be monitoring the home quarantine and the 8th day test. All port health organisations and Airport health organisations have been informed as they will also be a critical part of the implementation at the entry level.