UK excludes Covishield from recognised vaccine list!
As the number of coronavirus cases is dropping, many countries have started to reopen the borders for travelers with some guidelines and restrictions. Recently, the UK government has issued fresh guidelines for traveling to the country. In these guidelines, UK has excluded the Covishield vaccine, the Indian version of AstraZeneca, and people who have administered both doses of Covishield will be considered as unvaccinated. They have to undergo a mandatory 10 days of quarantine.
UK’s New Travel Rules:
According to these new rules, if you are traveling to the UK from India, regardless of your vaccination status, you need to take a pre-departure test, a Covid 19 test on or before day 2, and on or after day 8. Then you need to undergo 10 days of self-isolation. You can choose to shorten your quarantine to around five days under the ‘Test to Release’ service.
The new rules will be effective from October 4, but these rules have made many Indians furious and it has been described as Racism. High-level talks and discussions are going on to find a solution to this issue as the UK is recognising the same vaccine developed by Oxford-AstraZeneca manufactured in other countries.
These new rules will mostly affect students, who are returning to their colleges and Universities and now they have to spend extra for a 10 days quarantine.
Indian External Affair Minister S Jaishankar has urged his British Counterpart Elizabeth Truss to resolve this issue and recognize the Covid vaccine certificates issued by the Indian Government.
Currently, India is on the amber list of UK travel which means if a traveler wants to enter the UK, he has to take the Covid-19 test three days prior to his travel. If he enters the UK without a negative test report then he will be charged a £500 fine and he needs to undergo a Covid test on day 2.
A negative test report is mandatory for all travelers even if they are fully vaccinated. But they are exempted from quarantine.
The new UK rules for Covishield that come into effect from 4th October will consider fully vaccinated travelers from India as unvaccinated and they have to undergo 10 days quarantine.