The Centre has announced a revised set of guidelines for international travellers amid renewed fears over a new Covid variant ‘Omicron’ – classified as a variant of concern by the World Health Organisation.
From tomorrow, December 1, passengers flying in or transiting from countries affected by the new Covid variant Omicron will need a mandatory negative report of RT-PCR test conducted on arrival in India. However, children under 5 years of age have been exempted from both pre-and post-arrival testing.
All international passengers must submit 14 days’ travel history and upload negative Covid test results on the government’s Air Suvidha portal, the government said.
Every international passenger coming to India has to fill a self-declaration form and show a negative RT-PCR test report. They can’t enter India if any of these two conditions are not fulfilled.
Following the arrival from ‘at risk’ countries, the travellers will have to wait for their test results at arrival airport before leaving or taking a flight. If the test is found negative, they will have to to quarantine for 7 days. On the 8th day, a second test will be conducted and passenger will have to self monitor for 7 days if tested negative.
Passengers testing positive shall be managed at a separate isolation facility and their samples should be sent to INSACOG, added the guidelines. Contacts of positive patients will be kept under institutional or hone quarantine.
The government in its guidelines mentioned it clearly that all arriving passengers will have to undergo the same protocol — as applied for passenger form ‘at risk’ and non-risk countries. However, the facility for online registration is not available for such passengers currently. The passengers will have to submit the self-declaration form to the concerned authorities of Government of India at seaports or land ports on arrival.
According to the new document, all new passengers — planning to travel — must submit a self-declaration form on the online Air Suvidha portal before the scheduled travel, including last 14 days travel details. Also, they will have to upload a negative COVID-19 RT-PCR report in the portal, which should have been conducted within 72 hours prior to undertaking the journey. The traveller will also have to submit a declaration with respect to authenticity of the report and will be liable for criminal prosecution.
Further, in view of reports of an increasing number of countries reporting the Omicron variant, the present Guidelines also mandate that 5% of the travellers coming from countries that are not in the ‘at risk category’ will also be tested on a random basis at the airports for COVID-19.
