Maharashtra government on Thursday amended its guidelines for the testing of passengers from Europe, South Africa and Middle-East. There will be no RT-PCR tests for asymptomatic passengers who will be taken to a paid institutional quarantine facility. “However, RT-PCR test will be conducted between 5th and 7th day at the hotels, the cost of which will have to be borne by the quarantined passengers. If the report is found to be negative, the concerned passenger would be discharged from the institutional quarantine with 7 days of mandatory home quarantine,” the new guidelines said.
If the test result is found positive but the patient is asymptomatic, then he/she will be required to continue in institutional quarantine in the same hotel or in the COVID-19 hospital for 14 days. The earlier guidelines had made it mandatory for all passengers to be in paid quarantine for 14 days.
