27 May,2020 07:02 AM IST | Mumbai | Prajakta Kasale
More Indians will be repatriated to the country soon and those landing in Mumbai will follow the guidelines. Pic/Sameer Markande
The state government has come up with new guidelines, following those of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. As per these guidelines, issued on May 24, international travellers will have to stay for only seven days in paid hotel quarantine, and can spend the remaining seven days of the 14-day period at their homes.
Who is in home quarantine
People with reasons such as pregnancy, death in the family, serious illness, parents accompanied by children below 10 years, a distressful situation, may be permitted home quarantine for 14 days. The new guidelines will be applicable with retro effect and most of the passengers from the first and second batch of flights till May 22 could return to their homes by May 29, after getting the test reports.
The third phase of flights coming with stranded Indians has started. Passengers will be arriving from Jakarta, Johannesburg, London, Manila, Tokyo, Colombo, Mauritius, and Nairobi in 13 flights till June 7.
The new guidelines signed by Ajoy Mehta, chief secretary, mention that seven days institutional quarantine will be enough with the rest of the seven days at home. After the traveller is assessed by the receiving states, 14 days home quarantine may be permitted in special cases with the mandatory use of Arogya Setu app.
Passengers to be screened
On arrival, the passengers found to be symptomatic during screening will be immediately isolated and taken to a medical facility. If the passengers staying at hotels test positive, the mild cases will be allowed home isolation, and those with moderate or severe symptoms will be admitted to dedicated COVID-19 facilities.
"This is applicable for all the international passengers who have already completed seven days quarantine. The BMC has started the procedure for testing and passengers shall be discharged (for home quarantine) on the noon of the seventh day," said P Velarasu, additional municipal commissioner.
So far eight passengers among the 323 batch of people who first returned from abroad have been found positive. In all 2,423 stranded Indians were brought back on flights from other countries. In total 1,128 of them had chosen to stay with various hotels in the city for the 14 days compulsory institutional quarantine.
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