STATE TIMES NEWS
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir on Monday recorded 232 new COVID-19 cases taking the infection tally to 1,18,495, while the death toll due to the disease rose to 1,844 with three fatalities, officials said.
Of the fresh cases, 103 were from Kashmir division and 129 were from Jammu division of the the union territory, they said.
The officials said Jammu district recorded the highest number of 97 cases, followed by 36 in Srinagar district.
New Coronavirus strain: India suspends all UK flights from Wednesday till Dec 31
New Delhi: All flights from the UK to India and vice versa will remain suspended from Wednesday to December 31, the Civil Aviation Ministry said on Monday in view of the emergence of a mutated variant of the coronavirus there.
Moreover, the ministry said passengers coming from the UK through flights till Tuesday would be tested for COVID-19 on arrival at the airports “as a measure of abundant precaution”.
A number of countries like Canada, Turkey, Belgium, Italy and Israel 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 Sunday.
The Civil Aviation Ministry tweeted: “Considering the prevailing situation in UK, Govt. of India has decided that all flights originating from UK to India to be suspended till 31st December 2020 (23.59 hours).”
This suspension will start after 11.59 PM of December 22 and consequently flights from India to the UK shall also stand temporarily suspended during above said period, it added.
“As a measure of abundant precaution, passengers arriving from UK in all transit flights (flights that have taken off or flights which are reaching India before 22nd Dec at 23.59 hrs) should be subject to mandatory RT-PCR test on arrival at the airports concerned,” it mentioned.
The Union Health Ministry has called an urgent meeting of its Joint Monitoring Group on Monday to discuss the emergence of the new strain in the UK, which has led to a surge in the infection rate there.
The number of active cases dropped to 3,628 in the union territory as 458 patients recovered from the infection. A total of 1,13,026 patients have recovered so far, the officials said.
Meanwhile, the UT reported three COVID-19 deaths in the last 24 hours — one from Jammu and two from the Kashmir region. The death toll due to the pandemic has now reached 1,844.
Meanwhile, nine fresh COVID-19 cases were reported in Ladakh where 78 patients recovered from the infection during the past 24 hours, bringing down the number of active cases in the union territory to 355, officials said.
Ladakh had recorded a total of 9,279 virus caseload since the outbreak of the pandemic in March, out of which 124 patients, including 81 in Leh and 43 in Kargil, have succumbed to the infection.
All the nine new cases surfaced in Leh district, which had of late witnessed a surge in the positive cases, the officials said.
With the recovery of 71 patients in Leh and seven in Kargil on Sunday, the recovery figure had gone up to 8,800, which is 95 per cent of the total cases, they said.
