Coronavirus: India reopens to foreign tourists after 20-month ban; thousands of children in Philippines back to school for first time since pandemic began
- After halting tourist visas in March last year, India is now allowing quarantine-free entry to fully jabbed visitors from 99 reciprocating countries
- Schools in the Philippines have been closed; now a pilot reopening in 100 of them is underway in a two-month trial
After halting tourist visas in March last year, India is now allowing quarantine-free entry to fully inoculated travellers from 99 reciprocating countries. The government only requires such tourists to monitor their health for 14 days after arrival.
Since last month tourists on chartered flights were already being granted entry and Indian authorities expanded that to arrivals on commercial flights on Monday.
Many Indians have already been flocking to domestic tourist hotspots in recent weeks, such as the western coastal state of Goa and the mountainous north, as a deadly second Covid-19 wave faded out after triggering peak infection rates of more than 400,000 cases a day in early May.
Families also gathered together this month to celebrate Diwali, the country’s largest festival, with new cases staying well below 15,000 a day.
India’s immunisation campaign has also gathered pace, with more than a billion vaccine doses administered, and antibody surveys suggest that most Indians have already been exposed to Covid-19.
