New coronavirus strain: 745 passengers from UK quarantined in Mumbai

Photo for representational purpose

As many as 1,688 passengers arrived at the Mumbai international airport from the UK and other countries since Monday midnight and 745 of them were quarantined in the city, a civic official said on Wednesday.

In the wake of detection of a new variant of coronavirus in the UK, a new Standard Operating Procedure has been issued for dealing with passengers arriving from Europe and the Middle-East.

It could not be ascertained if any of these 745 passengers were found to have COVID-19 symptoms.

Around 2,000 passengers were expected to land at the Mumbai airport in the last two days, but only 1,688 had landed as of Wednesday afternoon, said an official of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

As many as 745 of them were placed in institutional quarantine in Mumbai, he said.

BMC teams at the airport are exempting from quarantine some categories of passengers such as pregnant women or those travelling to attend last rites of their kin, the official said. So far two passengers have been exempted.

On Tuesday, 590 passengers arrived in Mumbai by three flights from the UK. Of them, 187 were from Mumbai, 167 from rest of Maharashtra and 236 were from other states.

Mumbai municipal commissioner I S Chahal on Monday had announced that all passengers arriving from the UK, other European countries and Middle-East will have to stay in institutional quarantine for at least seven days.

The Union government on Monday said all UK-India flights will be suspended from December 23 to December 31.

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