A day ago, the United Kingdom made a minor change to its rules for Indian flyers regarding the Covid standards, classifying Indians who have received the Covishield vaccine as “unvaccinated.”
While the limits have been modified for persons who have received two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, the same version of the vaccine made in India by Pune-based Serum Institute of India has been excluded.
General Rules
If a person has visited an ‘amber list’ nation in the ten days leading up to her arrival in England, she must take a Covid-19 test in the three days leading up to her arrival.
The fine is £500 if a tourist arrives without documentation of a negative Covid-19 test before departure. On the second day after arriving, the tourist must take a Covid-19 test.
Fully vaccinated travellers must also undergo the previous test, but they are exempt from quarantine if they have completed the entire course of an ‘authorised’ vaccine.
Two doses of the Pfizer, Moderna, or AstraZeneca vaccination (the final dosage must be taken at least 14 days before arriving in England) or one dose of the Johnson & Johns vaccine are considered ‘authorised.’
Travellers from ‘green list’ nations must also do a Covid-19 test three days prior to their journey to England, and schedule a day-2 test after they arrive. The green list is exempt from quarantine unless the test result is positive on day 2 of the quarantine period.
The full course of the Oxford/AstraZeneca, Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna, or Janssen vaccines from a relevant public health body in Australia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bahrain, Brunei, Canada, Dominica, Israel, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, or Taiwan – and even mixing of two-dose vaccines (Oxford/AstraZeneca) is recognised on the list of authorised vaccines
Despite the fact that India’s vaccination campaign primarily uses Covishield, an AstraZeneca vaccine made by the Serum Institute of India, the country was left off the list until recently.
Covishield Approved
This effectively meant that Indians who had received Covishield, the same vaccine as AstraZeneca in the UK, had to take a pre-departure Covid-19 test three days before travelling to England; book and pay for day-2 and day-8 tests in England; and quarantine at home for ten days.
However, the situation appears to have changed now as the situation appears to have changed. The UK government recognised AstraZeneca Covishield as an authorised vaccination in its amended travel advice issued on Wednesday.
The UK government went on to say that it still has concerns with “vaccination certification.”
The UK government’s decision comes a day after India threatened the UK with “reciprocal actions” if it did not address its concerns about new COVID-19 vaccine certification regulations, which Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla described as “discriminatory.
At a meeting in New York, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also discussed the requirement for Covishield-vaccinated travellers to quarantine in the UK with newly-appointed British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss.
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