International travellers will need to quarantine for a week after landing in India and test on the eighth day, in new rules that came into effect from January 11, 2022 to tackle the Omicron-driven surge in Covid cases in the country.

All passengers will have to go into hotel / home isolation for seven days and take an RT-PCR test after that. If they test positive, they will be sent to an isolation facility and their samples will be sent for genome testing. Passengers seated near them and cabin crew will be treated as contacts. If the test is negative, the passengers “will further self-monitor their health for next seven days”, the rules say. For flights from countries that are not on the “at-risk” list, two per cent of the passengers picked randomly, will be tested on arrival.

Passengers found symptomatic during screening will be isolated and taken to a medical facility. If they test positive, their contacts will be identified. If travellers under home quarantine or self-health monitoring develop signs and symptoms suggesting Covid or if they test positive on re-testing, they will immediately self-isolate and report to their nearest health facility.

The rules for those arriving from countries “at-risk” remain the same – they have to take a test and wait for the results before leaving or taking a connecting flight.