All 11 passengers quarantined in paid facility
Dimapur, May 30: As controversy surrounds the landing of a chartered plane from New Delhi with at least ten passengers at Dimapur Airport, it has been confirmed that all the arrivals were family members accompanying medical patients who were undergoing treatment at a private hospital in Delhi.
As per reports, ten adults and an infant were on the chartered flight that landed at Dimapur Airport on Friday noon.
Official sources said the patients undergoing treatment at hospitals in Delhi were asked to move out of the hospitals since Delhi hospitals were taking more COVID-19 cases due to the spike in the number of active cases in the national capital.
So the patients’ families arranged the chartered flight to bring the patients home (Nagaland), sources said.
‘Omission from returnees list’
On the controversy surrounding the omission of the chartered flight and its passengers in the returnees list issued by the empowered committee as well as in the briefing by the State Principal Home Secretary on Friday, Government sources were of the opinion that they might not have been included since the arrangements for their travel (chartered flight) was not made by the State Government but by the families themselves.
But in any case, there are teams in both the Railway Station and the Airport to ensure that people coming on their own (medical and non-medical cases) are escorted to Agri Expo site for screening and thereafter for institutional quarantine, officials said.
Sources said all the arrivals from the chartered plane were taken to Agri Expo where they were screened and then sent to a paid quarantine facility (hotel requisitioned by the Government) as per the request of the families. It was informed that the families will pay all the charges incurred during their stay at the facility for the duration of the quarantine period.
Officials also informed that as per the SOP, no children below the age of 10 and adults above the age of 60 and pregnant women can be kept at institutional quarantine centres.
(Page News Service)
