125 Passengers From Italy Test COVID Positive On Arrival At Amritsar

One hundred twenty-five passengers of a chartered flight from Italy tested positive after landing at the Amritsar airport in Punjab on January 5. Chaotic situations arose at the airport as the passengers wanted to leave, but the policemen tried to control them, given their positive test results.

"There were 179 passengers on the flight. One hundred sixty were tested, and the remaining were exempted as they were under five years of age. A total of 125 passengers tested positive and were handed over to the State government as per the Centre's guidelines," airport director V.K. Sethi said as reported by The Hindu.

The flight from Milan arrived in Amritsar around 1:30 p.m. Since Italy is one of the high-risk countries regarding the Omicron variant, all adult passengers were tested on arrival as guided by the Union Health Ministry.

Confusion At The Airport

The situation was problematic at the airport as the passengers were unsure how they tested positive on arrival in Amritsar as they had produced negative Covid-19 reports before boarding the flight. Moreover, passengers' relatives outside the airport were voicing slogans against the Punjab government and the Centre for an alleged "conspiracy" in reporting such a high number of covid cases, as reported by The Indian Express.

Relatives believed that the passengers testing positive upon arrival is impossible as they produced a negative RT-PCR report which was not older than 72 hours before taking the flight. "How could they have turned positive during the eight-hour-long flight?" Gurinder Kaur, the relative of a passenger, told The Indian Express.

Further Actions

Amritsar airport authorities tweeted that they would take all necessary actions to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus. They gave out further information about the 125 passengers being attended by state health officials while the rest 35 passengers have been advised for self-monitoring and would be under supervision in their tweet.

It is to inform that #AmritsarAirport has taken all necessary actions to stop the spread of #COVID19. In today's flight all 125 pax tested +ve, are being attended by state health officials. Rest 35 pax tested -ve have been advised self monitoring and would be under supervision. pic.twitter.com/1u7vmOnSK5

— Amritsar Airport (@aaiasrairport) January 6, 2022

India crossed the 1 lakh mark for new cases by reporting 1,17,100 cases in the last 24 hours. Moreover, the number of cases specific to the Omicron variant stands at 3007, as reported by The Indian Express.

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