A recent tweet by British high commissioner to India Alex Ellis brought good news for Indians planning to fly to the United Kingdom. Fully vaccinated Indians travelling to the UK will no longer need to quarantine on landing from October 11. The quarantine exemption is for flyers vaccinated with both doses of the Covishield vaccine. The announcement closed the ongoing tussle over vaccine recognition in both countries.
The UK has been open to travellers from India for months. Thousands of visas for tourists, students, and business travellers have already been processed. But flyers had concerns over quarantine requirements and vaccine recognition. A big uproar came when the latest UK travel rules from October 4 did not list Covishield as an accepted vaccine against Covid-19.
The UK government eventually recognized Covishield since it is an Oxford-Astrazeneca formulation, which is already accepted by the UK regulatory authority. Despite several rounds of talks between the two governments, the situation became sticky when both countries imposed restrictions for travellers from each other.
The Indian vaccine certificate was not accepted by the UK, while India imposed similar quarantine requirements for travellers from the UK, regardless of the vaccination status. But the latest development has come as happy news for flyers from both countries.
