In Assam's Cachar, 98 air passengers flee hospital to escape mandatory COVID testing

-

Silchar: A total of 98 air passengers fled a hospital to avoid mandatory COVID-19 testing after landing at Silchar airport in Assam's Cachar district, a health department official said on Saturday. The incident occurred on Friday, two days after 385 air passengers created disorder at the airport and a hospital and fled without undergoing the test.

The Assam government has made it mandatory for all air passengers arriving in the state to undergo a free Rapid Antigen Test followed by an RT-PCR test for Rs 500 even if the report of the RAT comes negative. The passengers are tested at the Kumbhirgram Airport in Silchar and the nearby Tikol Model Hospital.

Click here for LATEST updates on the COVID-19 pandemic

On Friday, altogether 511 passengers landed at the airport by various flights, and 76 among them were exempted from testing as they were transit passengers going to other northeastern states, the District Media Expert, Health Department, Suman Choudhury, told PTI.

While 337 passengers were tested at the Tikal Model Hospital where six tested positive for the COVID-19 virus, the remaining 98 fled, the official said.

The matter is under investigation, Choudhury said. Some passengers alleged that the testing system was not up to the mark at the hospital while several others complained over the payment of Rs 500 for the RTPCR test, Choudhury said.

There were also complaints that the passengers were taken from the airport to the hospital in overcrowded buses, violating the social distancing norm. Earlier on Wednesday, 385 passengers fled to escape the mandatory COVID-19 testing.

The Silchar Airport director said in a statement later said that the incident did not take place inside the airport and no passenger has "escaped from security checks or the designated area at passenger's terminal building".

Cachar district Additional Deputy Commissioner, Health, Sumit Sattawan, had said that passengers had violated the rules and criminal proceedings will be initiated against them.



from Firstpost India Latest News https://ift.tt/32HQmZR
Press Trust of India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Both COVID-19 vaccine doses needed for good protection against B16172 variant

-
It’s been a concerning few weeks in the UK, with the B16172 variant first taking hold and then spreading to become dominant. This more infectious form of the virus, initially identified in India, is what we’re now going to have to live with – unless it is out-competed by another variant in the future. Worryingly, experts had predicted that B16172 might be able to escape some of the effects of vaccines, which if true would threaten to derail the UK’s plans to finish lifting restrictions from the end of June. However, Public Health England (PHE) has looked at the ability of various variants to evade immunity and says that the UK’s vaccines remain effective against the variants circulating, including B16172. On the surface, this looks like good news. But delve a bit deeper, and things get more complicated, says Paul Hunter, professor of medicine at the University of East Anglia. PHE’s research found a little drop-off in protection against B16172 among people who were fully vaccinated.
Read more

New coronavirus variant emerge in India: How should our COVID response change?

-
Image
After genome sequencing of over 10,000 COVID-19 cases in India, researchers have discovered a new variant with two new mutations which may be better at evading the immune system. In 15-20 percent of samples from the Indian state of Maharashtra (the state accounting for 62 percent of cases in the country) a new, double mutation in key areas of the virus has been detected. These are now known as the E484Q and L452R mutations. What makes the variant different? Both these mutations are concerning because they are located in a key portion of the virus – the spike protein – that it uses to penetrate human cells. Spike proteins attach via a “receptor binding domain”, meaning the virus can attach to receptors in our cells. These new mutations include changes to the spike protein that make it a “better fit” for human cells. This means the virus can gain entry more easily and multiply faster. Given what we have seen with other similar mutations , it might also make it harder for our immu
Read more

Aditya L1 Mission: Spacecraft is nearing its final phase, says ISRO chief

-
Aditya L1 spacecraft is nearing its final phase, and manoeuvres to enter the L1 point are expected to be completed by January 7, 2024, according to ISRO Chairman S Somanath. “Aditya is on the way. I think it has reached almost its final phase,” the ISRO chief told PTI on the sidelines of an event organised at VSSC to commemorate the 60th year of the First Sounding Rocket Launch. Aditya L1, India’s first space-based mission to study the Sun, was successfully launched on September 2 from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) in Sriharikota. The spacecraft, after travelling about 1.5 million km from Earth over 125 days, is expected to be placed in a Halo orbit around the Lagrangian point L1, considered closest to the Sun. He said that the last preparations for the spacecraft’s entry into the L1 point are currently underway incrementally.”Possibly by January 7th, the final manoeuvres will be done for entering into the L1 point,” Somanath added. Among other tasks, it will capture and tr
Read more