New Delhi: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday cancelled his visit to India scheduled for April 26 and the UK added India to its Covid-19 travel “red list”, effectively banning all travel from the country and making a 10-day hotel quarantine compulsory for UK residents arriving in the country. A BBC report quoted Mr Johnson as saying it was “only sensible” to cancel the visit in view of the raging pandemic in India which is battling a ferocious second wave of the Covid pandemic.
UK health secretary Matt Hancock confirmed the move to put India on its “red list” in the House of Commons as he revealed that 103 cases of the so-called “Indian variant” had been identified in the UK, of which the “vast majority have links to international travel”.
He said that samples of that variant have been analysed to see if the new variant has any “concerning characteristics”, such as greater transmissibility or resistance to treatments and vaccines.
“After studying the…