Apple temporarily closes all stores in UK amid surge in COVID-19 cases
Business | January 05, 2021 17:45 ISTApple operates 38 stores in the UK, 20 of which had already closed between December 22.
Apple operates 38 stores in the UK, 20 of which had already closed between December 22.
The UK is witnessing surge in corona cases after detection of a new variation which causes a higher infection rate. Hence, India's Health Ministry had issued fresh guidelines for passengers returning from the UK these days.
As of Monday, there were 26,626 COVID-19 patients in hospitals in England, an increase of more than 30% from a week ago. That is 40% above the highest level of the first wave in the spring.
In a shift from practices in the U.S. and elsewhere, Britain plans to give people second doses of both vaccines within 12 weeks of the first shot rather than within 21 days, to accelerate immunizations across as many people as quickly as possible.
Treasury chief Rishi Sunak had committed to ending the widely unpopular tax on tampons and sanitary pads in his budget in March but the change could only take effect Friday after Britain had finally left the economic orbit of the European Union.
India has successfully cultured the new 'more infectious' coronavirus strain, which had originated in the United Kingdom, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Saturday.
Passengers travelling from the United Kingdom to India from January 8 to 31 will now be subjected to mandatory self-paid RT-PCR test at the airport, the Health Ministry said on Saturday.
Results of the 15 samples that had tested positive for coronavirus on arrival in Ahmedabad from the UK are currently pending with the National Institute of Virology (NIV) in Pune.
Only 30 flights per week will operate between India and the UK when services resume from January 8 and this arrangement will continue till January 23, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had said on Friday.
Another 53,285 people in Britain have tested positive for Covid-19, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases in the country to 2,542,065, according to official figures released on Friday.
The situation is "very tough" and the problem is particularly serious in London but "this could easily spread", Adrian Boyle from the Royal College of Emergency Medicine said.
France has partly reopened its borders to the UK following the snap 48-hour ban this week. The country is only allowing French citizens to return home, as well as to relieve the massive build-up of freight goods, but has instituted a testing policy.
Eight passengers, who travelled by the first AC coach on AP Express with a COVID positive UK woman returnee, from New Delhi to Visakhapatnamtested negative for the virus on Friday.
After months of talks and at almost the last minute, Britain and the European Union struck a provisional free-trade agreement on Thursday that should avert New Year chaos for cross-border traders and bring a measure of certainty for businesses after years of Brexit turmoil.
India has temporarily suspended all flight operations between India and the UK till December 31, 2020. On December 20, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had informed the public that a new variant of the COVID-19 virus has been found in the UK.
A passenger who arrived in Chennai from London via Delhi has tested positive for coronavirus and genomes from his sample would be analysed to see if it matched with the new strain of the pathogen detected in the United Kingdom, a senior official said on Tuesday.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led Maharashtra government on Monday decided to impose a night curfew in all municipal corporations in the state from December 22 to January 5. The curfew will be imposed from 11 pm to 6 am.
Europeans in the UK brought their Christmas travel plans forward and headed for Paris and Brussels by train on Sunday, as a host of European Union nations barred travel from Britain in a bid to block a new strain of coronavirus sweeping across southe
Long queues of people hoping to travel to the UK formed on Monday morning at Brandenburg airport in Berlin, hours after Germany imposed travel restrictions for flights arriving from Britain.
Indian-American physician Vivek Murthy, US President-elect Joe Biden's pick for Surgeon General, has said there is no evidence to suggest that a new and more contagious coronavirus variant reported in the UK is any deadlier.
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