Mumbai: New fliers with no COVID-19 symptoms can go home after 7 days

Passengers who landed at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai from overseas on Tuesday. Pic/Sameer Markande

The Maharashtra government has changed the standard operating protocol (SOP) for passengers flying in from Europe, South Africa and the Middle East, apparently to help travellers avoid considerable expenditure on paid quarantine. The requirement of a mandatory institutional quarantine for 14 days for all has been removed from the protocol.

The government changed its stance to help travellers avoid considerable expenditure on paid quarantine

Henceforth, after screening on arrival at the airport and docks, asymptomatic travellers will not be put through RT-PCR (Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction) test immediately, but sent to the paid quarantine, where they will be tested (RT-PCR) on the 5th and 7th days. If they test negative, the travellers will be allowed to go home for another seven days of mandatory quarantine. The passengers will have to pay for the tests.

On December 21, India suspended flights from and to the UK, at least till December 31 to prevent the spread of a new strain of the novel Coronavirus. The state government had issued SOPs the same day, but the clause of mandatory institutional 14-day quarantine for all passengers was criticised by some political parties.

An addendum to the previous order said if the test result is positive but the patient is asymptomatic, then he or she will be required to continue institutional quarantine in the same hotel or in a COVID-19 hospital for 14 days.