British PM Johnson Cancels His Visit To India Amid New Strain

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has announced the cancellation of his visit to India.

According to the reports of the International news agencies, the British Prime Minister was to visit India this month where he would also attend the Republic Day celebrations of India on January 26.

A spokesman for the British Prime Minister confirmed that Boris Johnson had postponed his visit to India, adding that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also been informed.

He said the visit had been cancelled in view of the Coronavirus in England and the national lockdown situation across the country.

The spokesman for the British Prime Minister said that relations and cooperation between the two countries would continue in the same manner, even during the Coronavirus pandemic.

It should be noted that in December last year, the British Prime Minister announced a visit to India this month. He had said that his visit to India before the G7 summit would be important.

Note that, the Prime Minister of United Kingdom (UK) Boris Johnson has ordered national lockdowns in England and Scotland to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The lockdowns have been imposed to slow a surge in infections that threatens to overwhelm parts of the health system before a vaccine programme reaches a critical mass.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said a new, more contagious variant of the coronavirus was spreading at great speed and urgent action was needed to slow it down.

“As I speak to you tonight, our hospitals are under more pressure from Covid than any time since the start of the pandemic,” Johnson said in a televised address to the country.

“With most of the country already under extreme measures, it’s clear that we need to do more together to bring this new variant under control.

“We must therefore go into a national lockdown, which is tough enough to contain this variant. That means the government is once again instructing you to stay at home.”

PM UK said the health measures would include school closures from Tuesday and rules requiring most people to stay at home apart from essential shopping, exercise and other limited exceptions.

He said that if the timetable of the vaccination programme went as planned and the number of cases and deaths responded to the lockdown measures as expected, it should be possible to start moving out of lockdown by the middle of February.