Indians who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 with Covishield or
any other vaccine approved in the United Kingdom (UK) will not have to
quarantine upon arrival from October 11, the British High Commissioner to India
said on Thursday. The move comes after controversy over UK’s decision to mandate
quarantine for Indian travellers vaccinated with Covishield.

“No quarantine for India travellers to United Kingdom fully vaccinated with
Covishield or another UK-approved vaccine from 11 October,” British High
Commissioner to India Alexis Ellis tweeted Thusday.

Also Read | Not recognising Covishield discriminatory: Centre on UK travel policy

Britain’s Secretary of State for Transport Grant Shapps, “I’m also making
changes so travellers visiting England have fewer entry requirements, by
recognising those with full-vax status from 37 new countries and territories
including India, Turkey and Ghana, treating them the same as UK fully vax
passengers.”

The UK government’s quarantine mandate for vaccinated Indians was described
as discriminatory and colonialist by several members of the Indian
establishment. Tensions rose to an extent that the Indian government announced
that travellers from the UK would have to undergo quarantine in India even if
they are fully-vaccinated in a tit-for-tat move.

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 September 21.

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.

At the center of the crisis was the point raised by the Indian government and
others that the Covishield vaccine was developed in the UK as a collaboration
between Oxford University and AstraZeneca and thus it made no sense for UK to
not recognise the vaccine.

Also Read | Covishield jab not an issue, but India’s vaccine certificate is: UK

The UK government said that the problem was not with the Covishield vaccine
but with India’s vaccine certification. On Monday, the Indian government sent
162 out of 539 UK nationals travelling to India.