Covid: Boris Johnson cancels India trip over country's worsening coronavirus situation

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has cancelled his long-planned trip to India, due to the country's worsening coronavirus situation.

Downing Street issued a joint statement from the British and Indian governments, in which both sides agreed to meet in person "later this year" - instead of in Delhi next week.

"In the light of the current coronavirus situation, Prime Minister Boris Johnson will not be able to travel to India next week," the statement said.

India has reported more than 150,000 Covid cases a day for the past three weeks.

Not only are Covid-19 cases rocketing in the country, but a new variant found there is being investigated to see if it could spread more easily and evade vaccines.

The coronavirus situation in India has been worsening for weeks, but until now the government had resisted pressure to cancel the trip, keeping India off the 'red-list' of countries from which arrivals to the UK must quarantine in a hotel for 10 days.

On Thursday last week the country recorded more than 200,000 daily cases for the first time in the pandemic.

Mr Johnson said it is "only sensible" to cancel his trip, adding it is up to the UK Health Security Agency whether to add the nation to the travel "red list".

During a visit to Gloucestershire, the Prime Minister told broadcasters: "The red list is very much a matter for the independent UK Health Security Agency - they will have to take that decision.

"But Narendra Modi and I have basically come to the conclusion that, very sadly, I won't be able to go ahead with the trip. I do think it's only sensible to postpone, given what's happened in India, the shape of the pandemic there."

Professor Danny Altmann discusses what we know about the new India variant

Instead of meeting in Delhi, Downing Street said, "prime ministers Modi and Johnson will speak later this month to agree and launch their ambitious plans for the future partnership between the UK and India".

"They will remain in regular contact beyond this, and look forward to meeting in person later this year."

The prime minister's spokesman said there were a range of factors contributing to the trip's cancellation, including India's "epidemiology".

India is struggling to contain coronavirus, with cases there soaring. Credit: AP

He added: "Obviously the situation is challenging over there".

Mr Johnson said he looks "forward to doing it in person as and when circumstances allow, and hopefully before the Cop summit in November and hopefully we'll get Narendra Modi over for the G7 in June."

According to the latest update from Public Health England, 77 confirmed cases of the B.1.617 variant, which was first discovered in India, have been detected in the UK.

Mike Tildesley, a member of the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling (Spi-M), which provides evidence on coronavirus to the Government’s Sage committee, said as much information about the new variant must be gathered “as quickly as possible”.

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"What’s concerning about the Indian variant is there appear to be two mutations which… may make the vaccines less effective, and may make the virus more transmissible."

Dr Susan Hopkins, chief medical adviser for NHS Test and Trace, added that whilst there is not yet enough data to officially classify the new Indian strain as a "variant of concern", investigations are ongoing.

"We have seen a couple of cases (of the Indian variant) that haven’t arisen from travel but we’re still trying to undergo the investigations to look in great detail at where they might have acquired it from," she told the BBC.

As recently as Sunday the government was insisting the PM's India trip should go ahead.

Environment Secretary George Eustice said that despite rising infection rates in India, "it is appropriate" that the prime minister’s trip should go ahead.

He defended the decision keep India off the red-list, saying the situation there was being kept “under regular review”.

The likelihood of India being added to the red-list has risen now the the PM's trip is cancelled.

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