Nagpur: Amid the rising threat of the Omicron variant in India, the Maharashtra government has decided that passengers from six ‘ultra-risk’ nations will undergo institutional quarantine.
The ‘ultra-risk’ nations are South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Eswatini. The passengers entering the state from these countries shall be sent to mandatory seven days institutional quarantine, according to the new rules laid down by the state government. The order further said the rules will also be applied to the people who visited these nations anytime within 15 days ahead of their arrival.
After completion of the institutional quarantine period, if the passengers test negative on the seventh day, they will be asked to quarantine themselves at home. However, passengers coming from ‘at-risk’ nations no longer need to undergo institutional quarantine upon arrival.
Chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday asked the people not to lower their guards and said the state cannot have another lockdown.
Thackeray said that in order to avoid lockdown, everyone must follow Covid-19 appropriate behavior. He also asked the state authorities to take necessary steps to protect the citizens from the new variant without waiting for the Centre’s directives. “Saying kuch nahi hota yaar won’t do anything at all,” he saidRecently, six returnees from South Africa tested positive on arrival at Mumbai airport. However, the officials are yet to reveal the variant they have been tested positive with. The Maharashtra government has also made it mandatory to quarantine the international passengers entering the state from ‘at-risk’ countries for seven days.
In the latest, RT-PCR report, not later than 72 hours has been made mandatory for domestic passengers entering the city.
