Home quarantine for those coming from these nations: Karnataka's new Covid rules

The central government had already announced that travelers from these nations must produce their RT-PCR test reports before leaving the airport.

The Karnataka government on Saturday made home quarantine mandatory for those travelling from China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Thailand. The central government had already announced that travelers from these nations must produce their RT-PCR test reports before leaving the airport.

Passengers from high-risk countries - who show Covid-like symptoms - will be isolated at designated medical facilities for clinical management.

In revised guidelines on Saturday, the state health department underlined, “Asymptomatic passengers shall leave the airport and self-monitor their health for Covid symptoms and comply to Covid appropriate behavior (CAB) like wearing of face masks, social distancing, practice respiratory and hand hygiene, etc. and strictly remain under home quarantine for next seven days.”

Read | COVID-19: Karnataka CM says no need to panic, but follow safety norms

Passengers from high-risk countries - who show Covid-like symptoms - will be isolated at designated medical facilities for clinical management. The government also directed the passengers to report to the local surveillance health team if they develop symptoms like fever, cough, cold, body ache, headache, loss of taste and smell, diarrhoea and breathing difficulty during the home quarantine.

Last week, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar announced that a total of 12 international passengers tested positive for Covid in December at Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport (KIA). Samples for all positive cases were sent for genome sequencing to track and identify the variants, said the minister.

The Karnataka government has already made masks mandatory at schools, colleges, malls, restaurants, pubs and movie theaters in the state. The health minister earlier said that there is no need to panic and precautions must be followed as a safety measure. All the guidelines came after a surge in Covid cases in several parts of the world, especially China said to be going through a massive spike. BF.7 - a subvariant of Omicron - is said to be behind the surge.