UP: Hotel quarantine cut to seven days for expats, another week at home

GHAZIABAD: The UP government has reduced the duration of quarantine in hotels from 14 to 7 days for foreign expatriates who are being brought to the country under the Vande Bharat mission .

The move is expected to come as a relief for many international travellers who were having to spend several thousands on institutional quarantine.

After the 7-day period is over and a flyer tests negative, he will be allowed to go home, where he will have to spend another week in quarantine. Those returning from foreign countries will have to give an undertaking before boarding the flight, saying they would follow all such protocols .

Exemptions have, however, been made for pregnant women, senior citizens and children aged below 10 years. They will have the option of staying the entire 14-day period in home quarantine. Besides, travellers with serious illnesses other than Covid, those returning home for a family emergency and parents of kids aged below 10 would not have to spend the first seven days in a hotel. They will be allowed to head home directly.

For domestic flyers, the UP government has made a 14-day home quarantine mandatory. However, those planning a short trip of less than 7 days would not have to serve any quarantine period, but will have to take the administration’s permission before moving around.

Officials said those serving home quarantine would have to download the Aarogya Setu app and periodically update their health status on it.

The latest instructions were issued to district administrations through a letter by additional chief secretary Awanish Kumar Awasthi on Monday. The letter, officials said, specified that each flyer back from a foreign country would have to undergo a test before they are sent for home quarantine. In case, anyone tests positive for Covid, he would be admitted to an isolation ward. Moreover, if a person develops virus-like symptoms during home quarantine, he will have to get in touch with the district surveillance officer or the state call centre (1075) immediately.

Last Sunday, the UP government had decided to send foreign expatriates directly to their home districts instead of keeping them in paid facilities in Noida and Ghaziabad.PN Dixit, project director of the rural development authority and nodal in-charge, said, “Between May 9 (when the Vande Bharat mission started) and May 24, as many as 502 residents of various districts of the state were brought from other countries and kept in quarantine at several hotels in Ghaziabad. Of them, 400 have been sent to their home districts after the new order became applicable.”

According to Dixit, a total of 35 expatriates arrived from Toronto, Minsk, Moscow and Tbilisi in the last three days. Of them, only four are Ghaziabad residents. The remaining are from Noida (15), Bulandshahr (2), Lucknow (3), Moradabad (2), Mathura (1), Saharanpur (5) and other districts.