Travelling has become a logistical nightmare today. Vaccines were reckoned to ease some of the early COVID-19 travel mandates such as RT-PCR tests and quarantine, but it has only complicated travelling for passengers. For people travelling out of India, which has the highest number of emigrants, it has become even more difficult. Foreign countries adopted strict foreign travel policies to plug the transmission, considering the harsh waves of coronavirus infections in India and the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases in the world (after the United States of America).
The corollary effect — unsuspecting travellers being tangled in what is being considered as bureaucratic hassles. “There was anxiety among the travellers before; now, there is anger,” said Sanam Arora, the founder and chairperson of the National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) in the United Kingdom.
The UK has come under severe criticisms from India, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other countries for its latest travel policy, which many are still trying to comprehend. The UK recently moved a few countries, including India and UAE, from the Red List (high-risk nations) to Amber List. This means, effective October 4, passengers arriving in England could quarantine at home instead of at a hotel, but still have to take pre-departure and after arrival COVID-19 tests. The British government also announced that travellers from 18 more countries — in addition to the USA and a few nations of the European Union — will be considered fully vaccinated and that their vaccine certificate will be valid. The UAE was added to the list on September 22. However, India, among several countries, did not find a spot on the vaccine eligibility list.
Although people have been fully vaccinated in India — even with Covishield, the Indian manufactured Oxford-AstraZeneca of the UK — they will not be considered vaccinated in the UK. It has become a “vaccinated but not vaccinated” situation for people from India, for whom it was an uphill task to get at least one vaccine dose, after weeks or months of wait.
Quite something for UK to take such a stance against so many countries vaccine rollouts…especially those countries administering the *exact same* vaccines as UK (Pfizer/AZ/Moderna/etc)
— Alex Macheras (@AlexInAir) September 17, 2021
As we’ve come to expect, UK’s latest travel policy is as unnecessarily complicated as ever
Incidentally, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait and the US, too, are on the Amber List as well as on the list of nations eligible for fully vaccinated traveller policy. So, different rules apply to different countries under the same list.
“I would call this 'vaccine colonialism' as the Western nations are now splitting the world into those vaccinated in the Western developed nations and those vaccinated in the lesser developed nations,” said Dr Veer Pushpak Gupta, Physician and Researcher at National Health Service (NHS), UK. “India, China and Russia have vaccinated huge amounts of people, much more than the combined populations of US, UK and EU and yet they are not being included in this list."
As Dr Veer pointed out, there is no scientific backing to this decision and it needs to be reviewed. “I think this is a mix of foreign policy, logistical and the immigration issue. India has not been singled out and there is no racism against India itself but there is discrimination as to how this policy has been decided,” he added.
Following criticisms and warnings of reciprocal measures from India, the British government, on September 22, included Covishield in the list of approved vaccines. However, it leaves room for speculation about the vaccine certificate issued by the CoWIN portal, as travellers from India will still have to undergo quarantine. On one hand, it could probably indicate a lack of trust in India’s certification process or bureaucratic hassles. On the other hand, there have been reports of fake COVID-19 vaccine certificates being issued in India and many receiving wrong dates on their vaccine certificates.
Moving in the right direction but critical not to get confused. Covishield has now been recognised in the UK BUT since India is not on the approved countries list, appears that 10 day quarantine & all associated rules still apply. Already seeing rumours being spread to contrary! pic.twitter.com/s72eZoeKXk
— Sanam Arora (@arora_sanam) September 22, 2021
While clarity on the UK policy is awaited, the worst affected population of travellers are students, many of whom are set to travel for the new academic year. "Many students from India told us that undergoing quarantine at home, instead of paying 2,250 pounds for hotel quarantine, is fine. However, they asked why they were being treated differently than other countries on the Amber List. The US, for instance, was on the Amber List, comes under the authorised vaccine system and travellers from there don't need to undergo a 10-day quarantine, though they have to do two COVID-19 tests,” said Sanam.
Incidentally, the non-approval of India’s indigenous vaccine, Covaxin, by the World Health Organisation (WHO), too, has put travellers from India in a spot. Covaxin is one of the three vaccine types (Covishield and Sputnik V) being administered to the people in India, but does not have the Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) from the WHO yet due to lack of adequate clinical data. The review process is set to take place on October 5 and the vaccine may get approval later that month. Meanwhile, a majority of the countries like the UAE and the US are accepting only WHO-approved vaccines.
Unlike many countries, people in India cannot choose the vaccine type of their choice, unless they select the centres that have a certain vaccine in stock. Shalini*, a resident of Kuwait who has been in India since last year, took the first dose of Covaxin thinking it would be allowed for international travel anyway. “It was being marketed equally and heavily by the Indian government. But it turned out not to be the case,” said Shalini, who is currently in Bengaluru.
Desperate to travel back to Kuwait to join work, Shalini started looking for alternatives, mainly whether she could mix the vaccines and get the final certificate mentioning Covishield. Since that was not possible, she was forced to get the second shot too.
“By then, the Kuwaiti government said it would only allow people who have taken WHO-approved vaccines into the country. My job was, and still is, under constant threat. It's only because of my rapport with my boss that I still have the job,” she said.
Shalini said she checks the news every day, anxious to see whether Covaxin has been approved. “It has now started affecting her health. I don’t sleep much these days. I regret not getting Covishield. I never thought I would still be stuck here despite being vaccinated,” she said.
Shalini is not alone. Checking if Covaxin got the WHO approval has been the morning routine of Ronald Alexander, a DJ and music artist residing in Mumbai. “I was supposed to travel to Dubai in July. At the time, my event promoter in the UAE had informed us that all artists had to be fully vaccinated (either Covishield or Covaxin). When I was booked in May, I immediately looked for Covaxin as Covishield had a three-month wait, which I couldn’t afford. A couple of days after taking my first shot, I saw that Covaxin is not WHO-approved,” Ronald told TNM.
By then, it was too late for him. The second wave of COVID-19 infections delayed his trip from July to December. “So I got my second Covaxin shot in June. Now, it’s all in limbo again,” he said.
The intricacies of foreign vaccine policy aside, the emergence of coronavirus variants amidst the second wave of infections in India drove other countries to fortify their borders with stricter policies. Many countries have re-entered India into the list of high-risk coronavirus countries, along with nations such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Rakesh* could not leave Singapore when his father passed away due to cancer in September this year. “Travelling to India would be easy, but not coming back to Singapore,” said Rakesh, who is on an employment visa in the island city-state. Different rules apply for Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents, and others. According to the Singapore government website, “Non-Singapore Citizens and Permanent residents with travel or transit history through India in the 21 days before arrival are currently not allowed to enter Singapore.”
Rakesh said, “If I have to enter Singapore from India, I would probably have to live in a third country for 21 days and hope I could enter back into the host country. I would also have to apply through my company HR. It is a tedious process, and the policies keep changing.”
*Names changed on request