Starting Jan. 11, all international visitors will need to undergo a 7-day mandatory quarantine upon arrival, according to a statement issued by the Union Health Ministry on Friday.
The new quarantine policy will affect visitors from both “non-at-risk” and “at-risk” countries. People from “at-risk” nations will face more stringent restrictions.
Those arriving from “non-at-risk” countries must take an RT-PCR test on the eighth day of their stay -at their own expense- and upload their results to the Air Suvidha website, to be monitored by the corresponding States/UTs.
If their test results are negative, they must continue to monitor their symptoms for another seven days.
However, those coming from “at-risk” countries must also take an additional RT-PCR test upon arrival at the airport and wait for their results at the airport prior to leaving for quarantine or boarding a connecting flight.
In any case, anyone who receives positive results will be sent to an isolation facility and their samples will be forwarded to the ISACOG laboratory network for genome testing.
Pre-departure information and the obligation to download the Aarogya Setu App, will remain the same. Also, two percent of travelers from “non-at-risk” nations will be randomly selected for testing at the airport.
India has updated its “at-risk-country” list, to include “countries in Europe” including the UK, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Israel, South Africa, Brazil, Botswana, China, Ghana, Mauritius, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kazakhstan, Kenia, Tunisia and Zambia.
The country is bracing for another COVID-19 disaster, with daily infections nearly tripling in two days this week.
The surge is believed to be fueled by the highly contagious Omicron variant. Local specialists fear the health system could be overwhelmed once again.
According to data from the Union health ministry, the country reported 1,17,100 new Covid-19 cases on Friday, the largest number since early June, while active cases increased to 3,710,363.
New Delhi has had to impose an overnight curfew and weekend movement restrictions. All non-essential personnel has been instructed to stay at home.