India reopens gates to tourists from 99 countries as COVID-19 cases decline

Amid a decline in COVID-19 cases and increased vaccination coverage, India has reopened its borders for foreign tourists almost 20 months after the coronavirus pandemic.

India is now allowing quarantine-free entry to tourists from 99 countries including the USA, the UK, Israel, Kuwait, Brazil, Canada, Greece, Columbia, Germany, Sri Lanka and Russia, which recognise the Indian vaccination certificates and those that exempt Indian citizens fully vaccinated with nationally-recognised or WHO-recognised vaccines, as per the Health Ministry’s list.

If these travelers are fully vaccinated, they will be allowed to leave the airport and self-monitor their health for 14 days. In case these travelers are partially vaccinated, they have to submit the RT-PCR test at the airport following which they will be allowed to leave and self-monitor their health for seven days in home quarantine. There will be a retest on the eighth day and if found negative, they will have to self-monitor their health for seven more days.

The removal of travel restrictions is an advantage for the country’s travel and tourism industry. The lowering of restrictions places the travel and tourism industry “in a very good position,” IRCTC’s director of tourism and marketing Rajni Hasija was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

Meanwhile, India reported 10,229 more people testing positive for COVID-19, while the active cases dropped to 1, 34, 096, the lowest in 523 days, as per the Health Ministry data. Death toll reached 4, 63,655 with 125 new fatalities being reported in 24 hours, the data showed. India’s national COVID-19 recovery rate was recorded at 98.26 per cent, which is the highest since March 2020.

Daily positivity rate, on the other hand has been less than 2 per cent since the last 42 days and stood at 1.12 per cent today. Number of people who recovered from the virus went up to 3,38,49,785 whereas the case fatality rate stood at 1.35 per cent. Cumulative doses administered across India so far have exceeded 112.34 crore.

Also read: COVID-19 update: India logs 10,229 new cases, death toll reaches 4.63 lakh

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