From what it was conveyed through the new set of rules, the travellers from India who have got both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be considered “unvaccinated” and will have to undergo 10 days of quarantine in UK…reports Asian Lite News.
Indian travellers are worried over the new changes in the UK government’s Covid-19-related travel restrictions which will come into effect from October 4.
The new rules is aimed at simplifying the current “red, amber, green traffic light system” to a single red list of countries.
From what it was conveyed through the new set of rules, the travellers from India who have got both doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine will be considered “unvaccinated” and will have to undergo 10 days of quarantine in UK.
Under these rules, only people who have got both shots of a double-dose vaccine such as Oxford-AstraZeneca, Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna or the single shot Janssen vaccine “under an approved vaccination program in the UK, Europe, US or UK vaccine programme overseas” will be considered fully vaccinated, the Hindustan Times reported.
The rules also consider who have received jabs under public health bodies in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei,Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea or Taiwan as fully vaccinated, it was reported.
This means even Indians who have received both doses of Covishield, the local version of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and one of the two main vaccines being used for the domestic immunisation programme, will be considered unvaccinated.
The issues related to of travel restrictions has been repeatedly taken up with the UK at the highest levels, including by foreign secretary Harsh Shringla and external affairs minister S Jaishankar, the HT reported, citing people familiar with the developments.
Meanwhile, from 22 September, several additional countries and territories will move off the UK government’s red list – Turkey, Pakistan, the Maldives, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Oman, Bangladesh and Kenya.
The UK government is also planning to make changes from late October to allow passengers who change flights or international trains during their journey to follow the measures associated to their country of departure, rather than any countries they have transited through as part of their journey.
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