Seven-day home quarantine rule for international travellers scrapped

The Union Ministry of Health on Thursday (February 10) scrapped the mandatory seven-day home quarantine rule for international travellers.

As per the new set of guidelines, starting February 14 passengers will be required to self-monitor their health for 14 days after arrival and isolate in case they develop COVID-19 symptoms. However, thermal screening of passengers on arrival will continue and will be isolated if found symptomatic. Contact tracing norms will stay in force. Therefore, if found positive, their contacts will be identified and isolated.

Passengers from a total of 82 countries can upload a certificate of full vaccination instead of submitting a negative RT-PCR report prior to boarding.

India reported 67,084 new COVID cases and 1,241 related deaths in the last 24 hours ending 8 am on Thursday. The active caseload in the country dipped to 7,90,789, from Wednesday’s 8.92 lakh. The daily positivity rate also saw a slight decrease from 4.54% to 4.44%.

The health ministry has removed the ‘at-risk’ tag for countries. Accordingly, the need for giving samples on port of arrival and waiting till the result is obtained from countries ‘at-risk’ is dispensed with, the ministry stated.

Also read: Bharat Biotech study on best vaccine combo for booster protection

Amid WHO warning that new variants may emerge sooner or later, the Health Ministry has decided to conduct random testing of 2% of international travellers from all countries on arrival. Travellers can give samples and are allowed to leave the airport.

Meanwhile, the COVID vaccination drive has slowed down at Delhi and many other states. As per information provided by the Union health Ministry, as many as 171.28 crore vaccine doses have been administered so far in the country.

Further, more than 1.61 crore precautionary doses (booster) have been administered. The third dose drive for priority groups began on January 10.