'India Eases COVID-19 Spread, Allows Foreign Tourists Entry After 20 Months'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Bo-kyung] Foreign tourists have started entering India for the first time in 20 months as the spread of COVID-19 has significantly slowed down recently.

According to Indian media and foreign news outlets on the 15th, the Indian government began allowing foreign tourists who have completed vaccination to enter the country from that day.

These tourists must follow various quarantine rules in addition to vaccination and can only enter if they test negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours before boarding the plane.

This is the first time in 20 months that the Indian government has allowed foreign tourists to enter using regular commercial flights.

When the COVID-19 outbreak occurred last year, India suspended most visa functions starting in March of the same year. Since then, it has gradually restored the validity of several visas such as employment and business visas, but tourist and e-visas have still not been issued.

India’s decision to allow tourist entry is analyzed to be due to the significant slowdown in the domestic spread of COVID-19 after the related industry suffered a major shock during about a year of the pandemic.

Earlier, in early May, India suffered a terrible surge with daily new cases exceeding 410,000, but the situation has greatly stabilized now. Since June, the overall spread has started to decline, and recently, the number of new cases has dropped to the low 10,000s.

So far, 1.123 billion vaccine doses have been administered in India. Among them, 372 million people have completed the second dose. This accounts for about 27% of the 1.38 billion population.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.