Panic of Omicron: Crowd And Chaos at Delhi Airport turning it Into ‘Hotspot’. Images goes viral .
Amid growing concern over the new Omicron variant of coronavirus, long queues at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport with no social distancing gives a horrifying experience to flyers as they wait to get their RT-PCR test results.
As per the Centre’s new travel guidelines issued earlier last week, passengers coming from ‘at-risk’ nations have to mandatorily undergo PCR test and two per cent of passengers arriving from other countries would have to take the test on a random basis. The passengers will have to wait for the results before leaving the airport or taking a connecting flight, the guidelines said.
Visuals from the international flights terminal showed long queues of masked-up passengers waiting to get tested with no sign of physical distancing, with some of them describing the airport as a “hotspot”.
There are two options to get tested – passengers can pay ₹ 3,500 for a Rapid PCR test in which the result comes within 2 hours; the alternative is taking a regular RT-PCR test for ₹ 500 and spending 6-8 hours waiting for the result.
Taking to Twitter, people narrated their ordeal and shared pictures of the jam-packed airport. “IGI Airport at 5 AM, seems all flights for the day arrive at the same time. Finding Omicron is sure going to be like finding a needle in a haystack”, one of the flyers tweeted.
The long waiting time for the regular RT-PCR test result, especially after a long flight, makes the first option a natural choice, despite the high cost. Despite the long wait and the high costs, there are questions regarding how effectively the surveillance norms are being implemented .
Meanwhile , looking at the matter of mismanagement of crowd at the Delhi airport Union Civil Aviation Minister called a high-level meeting today comprising of officials from Delhi Airport, AAI, Immigration and COVID testing lab company .
According to MoCA officials statement , during the meeting, Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya M. Scindia issued directions to Delhi Airport to implement strategies for crowd management at the airport .
