Lockdown Relaxation: New Guidelines For International Arrivals, 14-Day Quarantine Mandatory

New Delhi: The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Sunday issued new travel guidelines for all international arrivals, mandating all travellers to give an undertaking that they would undergo mandatory quarantine for 14 days – 7 days (paid institutional quarantine at their own cost) followed by 7 days isolation at home with self-monitoring of health.

Home quarantine will be permitted only for exceptional and compulsory cases such as those of human distress, pregnancy, death in family, serious illness and parent(s) accompanied by children below 10 years, as assessed by the receiving states. Arogya Setu app has been made compulsory for such cases.

Travel agencies must provide dos and don’ts along with tickets to travellers, it said.

Here are the specified guidelines as per the government’s notice;

• Suitable announcement about COVID-19 including precautionary measures to be followed should be made at airports/port and in flights/ships and during transit.
• While onboard flight/ship, required precautions such as wearing of masks, environmental hygiene, respiratory hygiene, and hand hygiene are to be observed by airline/ ship staff, crew and all passengers.
• On arrival, thermal screening would be carried out in respect of all the passengers by the health officials present at the airport/seaport/landport.
• The passengers found to be symptomatic during screening will be immediately isolated and taken to a medical facility as per health protocol.
• The remaining passengers will be taken to suitable institutional quarantine facilities, arranged by the respective State/ UT Governments  and kept under institutional quarantine for a minimum period of 7 days. They will be tested as per ICMR protocol and if found positive they will be assessed clinically.

1. In mild cases, they will be allowed home isolation or isolated in the COVID Care Centre (both public & private facilities) as appropriate.
2. In the case of moderate or severe symptoms, they will be admitted to dedicated COVID Health facilities and managed accordingly.

Same procedures will be followed for the passengers arriving on land borders and only those who are asymptomatic will be allowed to cross the border into India. Also, they are supposed to provide self-declaration form in duplicate in the flight/ship and a copy of the same to Health and Immigration officials present at the airport/ seaport/landport.

States can also develop their own protocol with regards to quarantine and isolation as per their assessment, it added.