After its stand-off with the Centre over its divergence on the issue of guidelines for international flyers amid the Omicron scare, the Maharashtra government has revised its standard operating procedure.
The Uddhav Thackeray-led government has now created another category (ultra risk) for travellers coming from South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Eswatini and Lesotho. Travellers from these countries will be deboarded on priority and sent to seven-day institutional quarantine in view of new COVID-19 variant Omicron.
The revised rules also apply to people who visited these nations anytime within 15 days ahead of their arrival, and any passenger who are symptomatic. The new rules also prescribe that after their quarantine, these passengers will undertake another RT-PCR test and if it is negative, then they can undergo seven days of home quarantine.
Flyers from 'at risk' nations will no longer need institutional quarantine upon arrival.
On Wednesday, the Centre had sent a letter to the Maharashtra government stating that their guidelines were in divergence with the COVID-19 SoPs and guidelines issued by Union Health Ministry for international passengers.
“I would, therefore, urge you to align the orders issued by the state with the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Health, Government of India, so that uniform implementation of the guidelines may be ensured across all states and UTs. I would also advise that such modified orders of the state government are given wide publicity to obviate any inconvenience to travellers,” Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan had written in the letter addressed to Pradeep Kumar Vyas, Additional Chief Secretary of the state’s department of health & family welfare.
Explaining the change in rules, Aaditya Thackeray, a state minister, had told NDTV, “We were hit first, we were hit the hardest and we were always accountable and transparent... so we need to be a little cautious about our state… People's safety is top priority.”
Meanwhile, Mumbai mayor Kishori Pednekar informed that four passengers who came from South Africa to Mumbai have tested COVID-19 positive. She also said that the samples have been sent for genome sequencing.
According to a report in The Indian Express, the four patients have been shifted to Seven Hills hospital in the western suburbs of Mumbai.
With inputs from agencies
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