Coronavirus: Two Indian delegates test positive at G7 meeting in London
The G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in London has been hit by a coronavirus scare after two Indian delegates tested positive for Covid.
Britain is hosting the three-day meeting, which was stalled last year due to the pandemic, at Lancaster House in the capital.
Although India is not a G7 member, it was among other countries invited to attend the in-person meeting, which has been billed as a chance to restart face-to-face diplomacy after more than a year of virtual talks.
The two Indian cases were picked up by advance testing and none of the party had attended the summit venue alongside Cabinet members.
India’s foreign minister, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, will participate virtually in the event after coming into contact with the suspected cases.
“As a measure of abundant caution and also out of consideration for others, I decided to conduct my engagements in the virtual mode. That will be the case with the G7 meeting today as well,” he said on Twitter.
Home secretary Priti Patel is understood to have met with Jaishankar yesterday as the pair signed a new UK-India migration agreement.
Public Health England said that because the meeting was Covid-secure — held with face coverings, at a two-metre distance — Patel will not be asked to isolate.
Asked whether it had been a mistake to hold the meeting in person, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said this morning: “I think it’s very important to try to continue as much business as you can as a government.
“We have a very important relationship with India, with our G7 partners. As I understand it, what’s happened is the individuals concerned they’re all isolating now.”
Johnson added: “I will be seeing the Indian foreign minister later on this afternoon but that will be a Zoom exchange.”
The meeting is a precursor to the main G7 summit due to take place in Cornwall in June, with US President Joe Biden among a host of world leaders set to attend.
It comes as India’s latest Covid surge continues to worsen, with infections in the country now accounting for half the global total.
Daily infections in India hiked 382,315 today alone, marking more than two consecutive weeks of over 300,000 daily cases.
Prime minister Narendra Modi’s government has been subject to wide criticism for not acting sooner to suppress the second wave of the virus, as religious festivals and political rallies attracted tens of thousands of people.
Concerns around a new Indian Covid mutation have continued to swell in the UK. The new strain, which is thought to be more resistant to available vaccines, now accounts for around 10 per cent of infections in the capital.
Figures from the Sanger Institute, which analyses positive swabs for different variants, showed that the Indian mutation spread across England last month, accounting for around 2.4 per cent of all infections in the week ending 17 April.
That figure hiked to as much as 46 per cent in the London borough of Lambeth and 36 per cent in Harrow.
Vaccines minister Nadhim Zahawi said this morning that ministers are still assessing which Covid vaccine to select as a booster jab to tackle emerging coronavirus variants later this year.
“The clinicians haven’t yet made their decision when they will need to boost, whether to give more immunity to the most vulnerable, to increase the durability of the protection, or to deal with a variant,” Zahawi told Sky News.