India to impose 10-day mandatory quarantine, COVID-19 tests on all UK travellers from 4 Oct in 'reciprocal' move

The Central government has decided to impose a mandatory 10-day quarantine on British nationals arriving in India, with effect from 4 October. The decision was taken as a reciprocal measure over UK’s similar travel restrictions on Indian residents. Our new regulations will come into effect from 4 October and will be applicable to all UK nationals arriving from the UK, top sources in the government told CNN-News18 on Friday. According to the sources, “Regardless of vaccine status, arrivals will have to undertake three COVID-19 RT-PCR tests - within 72 hours before travel, on arrival at the airport, and on day 8 after arrival, and mandatory quarantine at home or in the destination address for 10 days after arrival in India.” The UK government has faced intense backlash over its refusal to recognise visitors as vaccinated unless they received their COVID-19 vaccine shots in a handful of select countries. The recently-released UK travel rules mandate that 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. There was no immediate reaction from the UK to India’s tit-for-tat move. In a strong reaction to the new British travel rules, India on 19 September had warned of “reciprocal measures” unless the UK addresses its concerns while describing these norms against Indians as "discriminatory" . India will now implement the following rules for all UK nationals arriving in India. They are: 1) Pre-departure COVID-19 RT-PRC test within 72 hours before travel 2) COVID-19 RT-PCR test on arrival at airport 3) COVID-19 RT-PCR test on day 8 after arrival 4) Mandatory quarantine at home or in the destination address for 10 days after arrival in India UK travel guidelines for Indians Last week, the UK in its revised travel guidelines included Covishield in the list of its approved vaccines but did not give approval to CoWin certificate which testifies the vaccination status of someone who has received the jab in India. This in return will put fully vaccinated Indians travelling to the UK to the status of unvaccinated travellers and will have to undergo quarantine in the nation. The UK initially refused to recognise Covishield, manufactured by the Serum Institute of India (SII). However, following India’s strong criticism of the decision, the UK on 22 September amended its new guidelines and included the vaccine. However, the move did not provide any relief from quarantine rules for Indian travellers vaccinated with two doses of Covishield. Later, British officials said the UK has issues with India’s vaccine certification process and not with the Covishield vaccine. The two sides held series of technical-level talks to resolve the vaccine certification issue, but there has not been any solution to it as yet. According to the new UK rules, Indian travellers who received both doses of the  Covishield vaccine will be considered unvaccinated. The new British rules have triggered massive criticism in India. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar also took up the issue of Covishield-vaccinated travellers being required to quarantine in the UK with newly-appointed British Foreign Secretary Elizabeth Truss at a meeting in New York on 21 September. Developed by researchers at the University of Oxford and pharma giant AstraZeneca, Covishield is one of the two anti-COVID vaccines used by India - Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin being the other - in its vaccination drive across the country. With inputs from PTI