A total for 48 Bangladeshi citizens returned home from the United Kingdom on Monday amid the detection of a new strain of COVID-19 in the European country.
Forty-two of the 48 passengers, who arrived by a flight of Biman Bangladesh Airlines, were Sylhet residents. They landed at Sylhet’s Osmani International Airport, reports UNB.
Then the flight left for Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka with the other six returnees, Osmani Airport Manager Hafiz Ahmed said.
“The UK returnees have been sent to an institutional quarantine of 14 days. Two buses and hotels have been arranged for them.”
Earlier, the government made a 14-day quarantine mandatory for the UK returnees from December 28.
On December 21, the World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “Scientists have been working to understand new COVID-19 variants that have been reported in South Africa and the UK.”
More than 40 countries have now banned air communication with the UK over a new, more transmissible mutation of the new COVID-19.
However, health officials maintain that there is no evidence it is more deadly, or that it would not respond in the same way to the vaccines cleared for emergency use.