7-day institutional quarantine mandatory for all UK returnees, says Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal

In a bid to contain the spread of the new COVID-19 strain, first discovered in the UK, the Delhi government has announced that all passengers from the UK, who test positive for coronavirus, will be taken to an isolation facility.

Travellers coming from the UK to the national capital will have to undergo a seven-day institutional quarantine and a seven-day home quarantine even if they test negative for COVID-19 on arrival, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal announced.

"To protect Delhiites from exposure to the virus from the UK, the Delhi government has taken important decisions. Travellers coming from the UK will have to mandatorily undergo a self-paid RT-PCR test on arrival at the airport," Kejriwal said.

To protect Delhiites from exposure to virus from UK, Del govt takes imp decisions.

All those arriving from UK, who test positive will be isolated in an isolation facility. Negative ones will be taken to a quarantine facility for 7 days followed by 7 days home quarantine pic.twitter.com/hYDsaOn8q1

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) January 8, 2021

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Air India's Twitter handle has also now shared the same document saying "that the Government of Delhi has mandated additional measures in its latest guidelines for passengers arriving from the UK". 

Reacting to the development, Sanjiv Kapoor, former Vistara Chief Commercial Officer tweeted, "This is ridiculous. You cannot tell people the rules have changed AFTER they land. Some notice must be given! Chaos at Delhi Airport with this flight, families with small children, pregnant woman howling."

He said while Kejriwal has "every right to make rules to protect Delhi, we need to be reasonable about it".

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"Give at least a day's notice. You cannot apply it to those who are already on their way based on earlier announced SOP and test negative on arrival," Kapoor added.

Kejriwal had on January 7 urged the Centre to extend the suspension of flights to and from the United Kingdom as the country now battles a variant strain of the coronavirus first detected there.

Flights from India to the UK resumed from January 6, while services from that country to India resumed on January 8.

So far, India has reported 82 cases of the new United Kingdom strain of SARS-Cov-2, the health ministry said on January 8.

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