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No mandatory home quarantine for international passengers in Delhi
International travellers arriving in Delhi from Monday will not need to quarantine themselves for seven days or get mandatorily tested at the airport, according to the revised guidelines of international arrivals issued by the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Sunday
International travellers arriving in Delhi from Monday will not need to quarantine themselves for seven days or get mandatorily tested at the airport, according to the revised guidelines of international arrivals issued by the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Sunday.
According to the new guidelines, the list of “at-risk” countries and mandatory seven-day home quarantine have also been done away with in the wake of significant improvement in the Covid-19 situation. Delhi, on Sunday recorded 804 fresh Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths due to the virus, according to the health bulletin.
Passengers will have to, however, self-monitor their health for 14 days after their arrival and if they show symptoms, they will immediately have to isolate themselves and report the symptoms to their nearest health facility.
According to the guidelines, 2% of the passengers in a flight will undergo random testing at the airport on arrival. Such travellers will be identified by the airlines concerned (preferably from different countries), will submit their samples and will be allowed to leave the airport.
“The need to monitor the continuously changing nature of virus and evolution of Sars-CoV-2 variants of concern, thus, must still remain in focus. While monitoring the nature and spread of infection in the country and across the globe, cognizance is also given to the fact that economic activities need to be taken up in an unhindered manner,” the guidelines stated.
Passengers found symptomatic during screening at the airport will be immediately isolated and taken to a medical facility. If they test positive, their contacts will also be identified and tested, an official said, adding their samples will be sent for genome sequencing.
Dr Jugal Kishore, the head of the department of community medicine at Safdarjung Hospital, said the seven-day home quarantine mandate was not necessary for international arrivals anymore because the pandemic wave fuelled by the Omicron variant was receding fast. “Random testing of certain number of passengers, particularly gene sequencing, is a good idea,” said Dr Kishore.
He added that since the positivity rate in Delhi has dropped to 1.5% and continues to decrease across the country, and a majority of the cases are mild, the government should lift the remaining curbs as well.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Disaster Management Authority is likely to meet with experts sometime this week to review the existing curbs and discuss whether they should be lifted to allow economic activity.
Currently, Delhi is under multiple curbs – night curfew (11pm to 5am), no standing passengers allowed in buses, Metro, 50% capacity for restaurants, bars, cinemas, only two passengers allowed in auto rickshaws/cabs, banquet halls not allowed to operate except to host weddings, visitors not allowed in religious places, among other restrictions. Since Covid-19 positivity rate on Sunday dropped to 1.5%, the DDMA may lift some more restrictions, said officials in the know of the matter.
Traders have started demanding the lifting of the night curfew. Chamber of Trade and Industry chairman Brijesh Goyal and Confederation of All India Traders secretary general Praveen Khandelwal have appealed to the DDMA to lift the remaining curbs as well.
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