'Offensive': Shashi Tharoor pulls out of UK event over new COVID travel policy for Indians
Fully vaccinated Indians who got Covishield, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, will still be subjected to a pre-departure PCR test and further testing upon arrival in the UK.
FollowShashi Tharoor, a Congress member, has withdrawn from an event in the United Kingdom after the nation announced that fully vaccinated Indians will still be subjected to quarantine upon arrival. Taking to the micro-blogging site, Tharoor on Monday wrote: “Because of this I have pulled out of a debate at the @cambridgeunion & out of launch events for the UK edition of my book #TheBattleOfBelonging (published there as #TheStruggleForIndiasSoul). It is offensive to ask fully vaccinated Indians to quarantine. The Brits are reviewing!”
TThe UK government has stated that international travel regulations for vaccinated persons entering and exiting England would be relaxed. Fully vaccinated Indians who got Covishield, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine manufactured by the Serum Institute of India, will still be subjected to a pre-departure PCR test and further testing upon arrival in the UK.
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Jairam Ramesh, a party colleague of Tharoor's, termed the regulations "racist." He tweeted: "Absolutely bizarre considering Covishield was originally developed in the UK and The Serum Institute, Pune, has supplied to that country too! This smacks of racism."
If a person has been vaccinated in Africa, South America, the United Arab Emirates, India, Turkey, or a few other countries, they will be deemed "unvaccinated" and will be required to follow the regulations and stay in a 10-day home quarantine. The existing traffic light system of red, amber, and green nations depending on degrees of Covid-19 danger will be phased out starting October 4 and replaced with a single red list. India had been on the amber list for a long time. In addition, travellers from 17 more countries having suitable vaccinations, such as Japan, Singapore, and Malaysia, would no longer be required to perform pre-departure PCR testing while visiting England.
According to the latest update, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka are among eight red-list countries that will be removed from the travel restriction list as of next Wednesday. Turkey, the Maldives, Egypt, Oman, and Kenya are among the countries that have been removed from the list. The new approach will be in place for at least a year, with the next assessment slated for early 2022.
