Hardeep Singh Puri schools Delhi CM over new COVID-19 strain tweet; Singapore refutes his claim

May 19,2021

It appears that Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted in a haste about the new COVID-19 strain allegedly found in Singapore. Kejriwal yesterday said that a new strain of COVID-19 found in Singapore is said to be extremely dangerous for children and it can result in a third wave in India. He went on to appeal to the central government to immediately cancel air services with Singapore and to work on priority to make vaccine options available for children.

However, his tweet attracted a response from unexpected quarters. Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri schooled him on the air services between the two nations. “Kejriwal ji, international flights have been banned since March 2020. We don’t even have any air bubble with Singapore. Only a few Vande Bharat flights are being operated between the two nations to bring back Indians trapped there. They are our own people. We still have our eye on the situation and all precautions are being taken,” tweeted Purin in Hindi.

Even the Singapore Embassy in India responded to Kejriwal’s tweet and refuted the claims made by Kejriwal. “There is no truth in the assertion that there is a new COVID strain in Singapore. Phylogenetic testing has shown that the B.1.617.2 variant is the prevalent strain in many of the COVID cases, including in children, in recent weeks in Singapore,” said Singapore’s mission in India.

The BJP alleged that Delhi Chief Minister doesn’t check facts before speaking. Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said in a tweet that Kejriwal has invited international insult by making such claims.

Delhi Congress president Anil Kumar said in a statement that the CM was trying to shirk his own responsibility on how to counter a new Singapore variant of the Covid virus as a habit.