Amid Omicron scare, BMC mulls to make COVID vaccination mandatory

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation is on its toes to avert a fresh outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic amid the emergence of the new Omicron variant.

With around 1,000 travellers from African countries, where the variant has been detected, reported to have landed in Mumbai in the past 15 days, the city Mayor on Tuesday announced that the administration is mulling to make vaccination compulsory for residents.

Informing the media about the same, Mumbai’s Mayor Kishori Pednekar said that the administration will impose fines on unvaccinated people and ban them from accessing public transport.

“We have already started quarantining those who come from European countries,” Mumbai’s Mayor Kishori Pednekar told the media.

She said while the city is yet to report any cases of Omicron, all international travelers will be quarantined for one week after which they will be tested again for COVID.

On Monday, BMC’s additional commissioner Suresh Kakani had said that while 1,000 passengers from African countries have landed in Mumbai, swab samples of 100 of them have been collected out of the 466 whose list have been received so far.

He said the reports of the 100 tested passengers will be out in a couple of days.

Pednekar also said that the administration has urged the Centre to reduce the 84-day gap between two doses of the Covishield vaccine.

Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope on Monday also informed about the government’s concern over allowing passengers from countries where the variant has been reported.

“Why should we not ban all flights from at-risk countries? We should request the central government for this. Cabinet has demanded this. A final decision will be taken in the next few days,” he said.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has categorized Omicron as a “variant of concern” after cases of the variant were detected in South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana.

The Union Health Ministry immediately issued orders to states and union territories to thoroughly screen and test visitors from abroad.

With Omicron, suspected to be highly transmissible and evasive to vaccines, several vaccine makers including Covishield and Covaxin manufacturers Serum Institute of India and Bharat Biotech respectively are still determining if the double-shot vaccines will work on patients infected with the variant.