Amid Covid-19 spurt, Air India cancels flights to this region

New Delhi, April 18: Air India has cancelled flight services to Hong Kong due to Covid-19 restrictions imposed by the Hong Kong authorities and limited demand in the sector, the airline said. "Due to restrictions imposed by the Hong Kong authorities and limited demand on the sector, our flights to Hong Kong and back of 19th and 23rd April stand cancelled," Air India tweeted on Sunday. Passengers from India can arrive in Hong Kong only if they have a Covid-19 negative certificate from a test done 48 hours prior to the journey, according to rules issued by the Hong Kong government. Earlier in January, this year, Hong Kong had announced a two-week ban on incoming flights from eight countries, including India, as the world continues to witness a surge in the Omicron variant of Covid-19. HKSAR Chief Executive Carrie Lam had announced the flight suspension at a press conference. She said that the ban would affect passengers from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and the United States, including transferring passengers, according to Xinhua. Also read | Soon, WhatsApp to allow 32 persons in group voice call; bring emojis in chats Lam further said the decision on the flight suspension was made because of a rapid change in the local Covid-19 situation. On the other hand, after a steady decline in new Covid-19 cases for the past several weeks following the third surge in January-February this year mainly due to the Omicron variant, India's daily COVID infections witnessed a jump of 89.8 per cent on Monday from Sunday's 1,150 cases and reported 2,183 fresh cases in the last 24 hours. According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the daily case positivity rate also saw a sudden rise from 0.31 per cent (on Sunday) to 0.83 per cent (on Monday). The weekly positivity rate saw an uptick from 0.27 per cent (on Sunday) to 0.32 (on Monday). However, with the recovery of 1,985 Covid patients in the last 24 hours, the active cases saw a minor decline to 11,542 which account for 0.03 per cent of the total cases. The total number of recoveries in the country since the onset of the pandemic stands at 4,25,10,773. The recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent. The death toll due to Covid-19 climbed to 5,21,965. As many as 2,61,440 Covid samples were tested in the country during this period taking the total number of samples tested till date to 83.21 crore. Also read | CBSE to restore single board exam pattern for Classes X, XII from next session -PTC News