Statesfinallyclearairforanxiousflyers India now among 10 worst countries in Covid-19 cases

Passengers wade through the labyrinth of state-specific regulations

NEW DELHI: Air travel across the country was set to resume on Monday, with all states finally agreeing to accept at least some flights but announcing varied quarantine and self-isolation rules for arriving passengers to address misgivings about infections being brought in from other cities.

Instead of following the national guidelines issued by the Union government for all departing and disembarking passengers, many of the states chose to set their own rules: Karnataka, for instance, requires mandatory institutional quarantine for passengers from worst-affected states, while Punjab and Meghalaya have made a swab test mandatory for arrivals.

Several states said passengers will be taken to a facility only if they show symptoms of fever or cough — in line with Union government guidelines released on Sunday — while several among them decided to additionally mandate or suggest self-isolation for either 14 or 28 days, even if a traveller is asymptomatic.

Some other states, such as Mizoram and Himachal Pradesh, said that only state residents will be allowed to enter the city from the airports.

The announcements came a day after three states — Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu — requested the Union government to reconsider the decision to allow domestic flight operations to resume as it could lead to a spike in infections. On Sunday, the ministry held several discussions with these states and airline representatives.

“It has been a long day of hard negotiations with various state governments to recommence civil aviation operations in the country. Except Andhra Pradesh which will start on 26/5 and West Bengal on 28/5, domestic flights will recommence across the country from tomorrow,” civil aviation minister Hardeep Puri said in a tweet on Sunday evening.

In the morning, he spoke to Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray over video to convince the state to allow some flights to resume.

Shortly after, Thackeray, in a press conference, said: “I spoke to civil aviation minister Hardeep Singh Puri today and told him that the Mumbai international airport needs more time to resume its operations. Till the time the airport plans and finetunes operations, aviation ministry should initiate minimum possible domestic flights from Maharashtra from May 25.”

On Sunday evening, the ministry announced that some 50 flights will operate from Mumbai. “It’s extremely ill-advised to reopen airports in red zone. Mere thermal scanning of passengers, inadequate without swabs. Impossible to have autos/cabs/ buses ply in current circumstances. Adding positive passenger will add Covid stress to red zone. #Maharashtragovtcares,” Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh said in a tweet.

NEW DELHI: With the highest oneday national surge of 6,634 new coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases, India on Sunday overtook Iran to become the 10th biggest hot spot of the pathogen, which has rapidly swept the globe, claiming new epicentres across continents and leaving health care systems overwhelmed in its wake.

The number of Covid-19 cases in the country stood at 138,474 on Sunday, nearly doubling over the course of 13 days, even as graded relaxations in the fourth phase of the national lockdown were likely to push up the contagion over the coming days.

New Covid-19 cases dropped to zero for the first time on Saturday in China, the country where the pandemic originated, but surged in India and ravaged South America. Experts say that in countries with weak health care systems and impoverished populations, fighting the virus has proven to be difficult.

Latin America has become the latest epicentre of the highly contagious disease. Brazil and Mexico reported record numbers of infections and deaths almost daily this week, fuelling criticism of their governments for limited lockdowns. India’s rate of new Covid-19 cases appears to be tracking that of Brazil. The country’s daily case count on Sunday was where Brazil’s stood about 15 days ago.

But infections also rose and intensive-care units were swamped in Peru, Chile and Ecuador, all countries praised for imposing early and aggressive shutdowns.

The latest 10,000 infections were recorded in two days. India recorded its first 10,000 Covid-19 cases in nearly 43 days, with a wave of infections beginning in March after three isolated cases were first reported in Kerala in January. It took seven days for the cases to climb from 20,000 to 30,000. The disease’s doubling rate, which is defined as the average period it takes for a twofold rise, decreased from 13.9 days on May 18 – the day the cases hit 100,000 – to 13.1 on Sunday. The doubling rate – which is calculated over a period of last seven days – was four days at the beginning of April. Several experts say the peak of the outbreak in India is yet to come. Across the world, many governments are easing restrictions as they face political challenges and poor economic indicators brought on by the pandemic. In just a few months, the pandemic has killed at least 345,000 people worldwide and infected more than 5.4 million.

Turkey, which stands at the ninth spot in the global tally just above India, imposed its toughest lockdown measures yet starting Saturday for the Eid holiday. In Germany, which has drawn praise for its handling of the outbreak, seven people appeared to have been infected at a restaurant. It would be the first known such case since restaurants started reopening two weeks ago. France, which has the seventh highest number of infections, has allowed religious services to resume after a legal challenge to the government’s ban on gatherings in places of worship.

The US has been the hardesthit country, with about 100,000 Covid-19 deaths so far among 1.6 million confirmed cases.