The Indian Union Health Ministry has called an urgent meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group today to discuss the emergence of a mutated variant of the coronavirus in the United Kingdom.
A number of European countries have banned flights from the UK as the British government warned that the potent new strain of the virus was "out of control" and imposed a stringent new stay-at-home lockdown from yesterday.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the new rules at a briefing from 10 Downing Street on Saturday evening, which means a planned five-day “Christmas bubble" of relaxed rules has been cancelled in favour of a new Tier 4 level to the current three-tier lockdown system to try and control the surge in infections being caused by the new mutation of the deadly virus.
"It seems that the spread is now being driven by the new variant of the virus," Johnson said.
“We have alerted the World Health Organisation and are continuing to analyse the available data to improve our understanding," said Professor Chris Whitty, the Chief Medical Officer for England.