Maharashtra Environment Minister Aaditya Thackeray amid friction with the Centre over the guidelines at airports on Wednesday said that Maharashtra needs to be more careful than other states regarding the new Covid variant Omicron as it was "hit first and hit the hardest" last time.
According to a NDTV report, Aaditya made it clear that Maharashtra's rules will still be different from the Centre's version as "People's safety is top priority".
"We have to do certain things in a stricter fashion because if you see the last time also --- we were hit first, we were hit the hardest and we were always accountable and transparent... so we need to be a little cautious about our state," he told NDTV in an exclusive interview.
Maharashtra government announced a slew of restrictions yesterday that were to come into effect at midnight, which would have spelled trouble for more than a thousand incoming international passengers who would have boarded their planes without knowing about any change in rules.
As per the rules, those from more than 50 'at risk' nations had to undergo mandatory institutional quarantine of seven days, during which they had to take three RT-PCR tests and pay for all.
In view of the threat from Covid-19 variant Omicron, the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport on Wednesday started segregating passengers arriving here from the 'high-risk' countries, after six were found infected in the past few days, an official said.
The new exercise was implemented after six international passengers have tested positive for Covid-19, including two from South Africa and the rest from other high-risk countries in the past few days.
According to a state government official, one each was found positive in Mumbai, Kalyan-Dombivali and Mira-Bhayander, while one is from Pune and two others from Pimpri-Chinchwad.
As per the current guidelines, all passengers arriving from Europe and 11 other nations will be tested and samples of those found positive will be sent for genomic sequencing.
