Mandatory 7-Day Home Quarantine for All International Travellers to India
NEW DELHI, Jan 7: All international travelers to India will now have to compulsorily undergo seven-day quarantine at home, even if they test negative for Covid-19 at the airport, and get tested on the eighth day. The centre on Friday announced the new rule that would take effect from Tuesday to tackle a huge Omicron-driven surge in Covid cases in the country.
The number of “at-risk” countries has been increased to 19; nine more have been added since December. All passengers from abroad coming to India will have to go into home isolation for seven days and take an RT-PCR test after that. If they test positive, they will be sent to an isolation facility and their samples will be sent for genome testing.
Passengers seated near them and cabin crew will be treated as contacts. If the test is negative, the passengers “will further self-monitor their health for next seven days”, the rules say. Passengers found symptomatic during screening will be isolated and taken to a medical facility. If they test positive, their contacts will be identified. If travellers under home quarantine or self-health monitoring develop signs and symptoms suggesting Covid or if they test positive on re-testing, they will immediately self-isolate and report to their nearest health facility. The rules for those arriving from countries “at-risk” remain the same – they have to take a test and wait for the results before leaving or taking a connecting flight. For flights from countries that are not on the “at-risk” list, two per cent of the passengers picked randomly, will be tested on arrival.
The new rules were announced on a day India reported 1,17,100 new cases of Covid – a 28 per cent jump in 24 hours. Cases have gone from 10,000 to more than a lakh in just a week as the virus spreads at an unprecedented pace, driven by the Omicron variant. The number of confirmed Omicron cases in India also went up to 3,007 and has spread to 27 states on Friday. Out of the total Omicron cases reported so far, 1,199 people have recovered or migrated. Maharashtra recorded the maximum number of 876 cases followed by Delhi at 465, Karnataka 333, Rajasthan 291, Kerala 284 and Gujarat 204.
The cumulative Covid-19 vaccine doses administered in India surpassed 150-crore mark on Friday. Terming it a “historic achievement”, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said it could be attained only because of the relentless hard work of healthcare workers.
With 30,836 new recoveries, the country’s active caseload is now at 3,71,363. The death toll increased to 4,83,178 after 302 patients succumbed to the deadly infection.
Meanwhile in Delhi which continued to show Continuing the upward trend, the AIIMS on Friday suspended routine inpatient non-emergency admissions and all routine procedures or non essential surgeries with immediate effect while initiating the process to convert the Trauma Centre into a dedicated Covid facility. The OPD services in AIIMS Hospital and all Centres will continue to function with restricted registrations limited to only prior appointment patients (new & follow up).
While the Gujarat government has postponed its bi-annual prestigious “Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit” scheduled to be held from January 10 due to the Covid surge, the 15th edition of the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF), scheduled to run between January 28-February 1, has now been postponed to March 5-14 in view of the rising number of Covid cases in Rajasthan. About 250 authors, thinkers, politicians and popular culture icons across the world are expected to participate in the festival, which will be held in hybrid mode. It will be virtual from March 5-9, and in person from March 10-14.
Meanwhile in West Bengal, the BJP on Friday sought deferment by at least one month of elections to four municipal corporations, scheduled to be held on January 22, and control on the number of people attending the upcoming Gangasagar Mela in view of a massive upsurge in Covid-19 cases. State BJP spokesperson Samik Bhattacharya also urged the governments of other states from where pilgrims come in large numbers to the annual fair to impose some restrictions at their end. The chief minister Mamata Banerjee had earlier refused to restrict the number of people at the Gangasagar annual fair on the ground that the centre and the Uttarakhand government did not restrict he crowd at the Kumbh Mela in Haridwar last year.
(Manas Dasgupta)
