Saudi Arabia has suspended flights from 20 nations, including India and the United States, in a bid to curb the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the country.
According to a report by news agency AFP, the Saudi Arabia interior ministry has announced that international flights from 20 nations have been suspended from Wednesday as the nation saw a fresh spike of coronavirus cases.
Apart from India, the temporary suspension of flights applies to Pakistan, United States, Brazil, Japan and several other nations. The list of nations also includes Britain, Italy, Portugal, France, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland.
The state news agency of Saudi has however said that an exception will be made for diplomats, Saudi citizens, medical practitioners, and their families.
So far, Saudi Arabia has reported 3,68,000 Covid-19 cases and 6,400 deaths. While the daily Covid-19 cases have dipped from 5,000 in June to 100 in January, on Tuesday, over 300 cases were reported, sending alarm among the authorities.
Saudi Arabia has already started vaccinating its population with the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.
Mean-while, India’s COVID-19 tally of cases rose to 1,07,77,284 with 11,039 new infections being reported in a day, while the recoveries surged to 1,04,62,631, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.
The death count increased to 1,54,596 with 110 daily new fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.
The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,04,62,631 pushing the national COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.08 percent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate stands at 1.43 percent. The total COVID-19 active cases remained below 2 lakh.
There are 1,60,057 active coronavirus infections in the country which comprises 1.49 percent of the total caseload, the data stated.
