| Beyond the Tarmac |
Different guidelines for air travellers, particularly with regard to Covid-19 screening, seem to have created a lot of confusion among passengers, highlighting inconsistencies and lack of co-ordination in countries around the world.
A case in point is India, where the federal government (Centre) and different states have now different sets of rules for arriving international passengers following the outbreak of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
According to India’s leading newspaper The Economic Times, “Given rising concerns about the new highly infectious Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Centre has come up with new rules for international flyers coming into India. Under these rules, people coming from ‘at risk’ countries must upload a Covid-negative test result and travel plans for 14 days on the government’s Air Suvidha portal, besides getting a second RT-PCR test done on arrival.
“But that would not be enough for those landing in Maharashtra and Karnataka,” The Economic Times noted.
The Maharashtra government’s new set of rules includes one-week mandatory institutional quarantine for passengers flying in from “at risk” countries while the Karnataka government has mandated a seven-day home quarantine for flyers from those countries even if they have tested negative.
Another state Kerala, which is home to millions of non-resident Indians, has different sets of rules for international arrivals.
The ‘at risk’ countries listed by India according to The Economic Times include the UK, South Africa, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel.
Meanwhile, the Indian federal government has written to states to not come up with divergent guidelines. But it’s not clear yet if the states will roll back their guidelines.
Many other countries also have different sets of health guidelines for arriving passengers in the wake of the new coronavirus variant – Omicron.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged countries around the world to follow “time-limited science-based” to curb the spread of Covid-19 rather than knee-jerk reactions.
Countries implementing measures such as screening or quarantine “need to be defined following a thorough risk assessment process informed by the local epidemiology in departure and destination countries and by the health system and public health capacities in the countries of departure, transit and arrival. All measures should be commensurate with the risk, time-limited and applied with respect to travellers’ dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms, as outlined in the International Health Regulations.”
“After nearly two years with Covid-19 we know a lot about the virus and the inability of travel restrictions to control its spread. But the discovery of the Omicron variant induced instant amnesia on governments which implemented knee-jerk restrictions in complete contravention of advice from the WHO – the global expert,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.
IATA has urged governments to reconsider all Omicron measures. “The goal is to move away from the uncoordinated, evidence absent, risk-unassessed mess that travellers face. As governments agreed at ICAO and in line with the WHO advice, all measures should be time-bound and regularly reviewed.
“It is unacceptable that rushed decisions have created fear and uncertainty among travellers just as many are about to embark on year-end visits to family or hard-earned vacations,” said Walsh.
WHO has affirmed that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread. And they place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods. In addition, they can adversely impact global health efforts during the pandemic, by disincentivising countries to report and share the epidemiological and sequencing data.
All countries should ensure that the measures are regularly reviewed and updated when new evidence becomes available. And that's the case supported again by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which says pretty much the same thing.
The best thing governments can do here is to look and assess the risk based on the data and make decisions based on that.
Walsh added: “But it's clear to us that the travel industry, and airlines in particular are being used as the poster child to transmit fear, to transmit the messages that governments want to force people to continue to restrict their movements, to comply with all of the Covid requirements. It's not because there's a threat caused by aviation, but it's merely to be able to demonstrate that there is a threat out there.
“And by hammering the airline industry, they think they're sending a strong, powerful message to the general population to get them to comply with the restrictions. But it's doing huge damage to the airline industry and to tourism industry and to global economies; and it's doing huge damage to people who have been unable to travel, to connect with their family, connect with friends, travel for business.”
A case in point is India, where the federal government (Centre) and different states have now different sets of rules for arriving international passengers following the outbreak of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.
According to India’s leading newspaper The Economic Times, “Given rising concerns about the new highly infectious Omicron variant of coronavirus, the Centre has come up with new rules for international flyers coming into India. Under these rules, people coming from ‘at risk’ countries must upload a Covid-negative test result and travel plans for 14 days on the government’s Air Suvidha portal, besides getting a second RT-PCR test done on arrival.
“But that would not be enough for those landing in Maharashtra and Karnataka,” The Economic Times noted.
The Maharashtra government’s new set of rules includes one-week mandatory institutional quarantine for passengers flying in from “at risk” countries while the Karnataka government has mandated a seven-day home quarantine for flyers from those countries even if they have tested negative.
Another state Kerala, which is home to millions of non-resident Indians, has different sets of rules for international arrivals.
The ‘at risk’ countries listed by India according to The Economic Times include the UK, South Africa, China, Mauritius, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Hong Kong and Israel.
Meanwhile, the Indian federal government has written to states to not come up with divergent guidelines. But it’s not clear yet if the states will roll back their guidelines.
Many other countries also have different sets of health guidelines for arriving passengers in the wake of the new coronavirus variant – Omicron.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged countries around the world to follow “time-limited science-based” to curb the spread of Covid-19 rather than knee-jerk reactions.
Countries implementing measures such as screening or quarantine “need to be defined following a thorough risk assessment process informed by the local epidemiology in departure and destination countries and by the health system and public health capacities in the countries of departure, transit and arrival. All measures should be commensurate with the risk, time-limited and applied with respect to travellers’ dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms, as outlined in the International Health Regulations.”
“After nearly two years with Covid-19 we know a lot about the virus and the inability of travel restrictions to control its spread. But the discovery of the Omicron variant induced instant amnesia on governments which implemented knee-jerk restrictions in complete contravention of advice from the WHO – the global expert,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.
IATA has urged governments to reconsider all Omicron measures. “The goal is to move away from the uncoordinated, evidence absent, risk-unassessed mess that travellers face. As governments agreed at ICAO and in line with the WHO advice, all measures should be time-bound and regularly reviewed.
“It is unacceptable that rushed decisions have created fear and uncertainty among travellers just as many are about to embark on year-end visits to family or hard-earned vacations,” said Walsh.
WHO has affirmed that blanket travel bans will not prevent the international spread. And they place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods. In addition, they can adversely impact global health efforts during the pandemic, by disincentivising countries to report and share the epidemiological and sequencing data.
All countries should ensure that the measures are regularly reviewed and updated when new evidence becomes available. And that's the case supported again by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), which says pretty much the same thing.
The best thing governments can do here is to look and assess the risk based on the data and make decisions based on that.
Walsh added: “But it's clear to us that the travel industry, and airlines in particular are being used as the poster child to transmit fear, to transmit the messages that governments want to force people to continue to restrict their movements, to comply with all of the Covid requirements. It's not because there's a threat caused by aviation, but it's merely to be able to demonstrate that there is a threat out there.
“And by hammering the airline industry, they think they're sending a strong, powerful message to the general population to get them to comply with the restrictions. But it's doing huge damage to the airline industry and to tourism industry and to global economies; and it's doing huge damage to people who have been unable to travel, to connect with their family, connect with friends, travel for business.”