Panjim: In a major relaxation, starting from Thursday, those entering Goa from foreign countries including seafarers can now opt for either paid quarantine or home quarantine for a period of 14 days, if tested COVID-19 negative on arrival.However, testing would be mandatory. Until results are out, person will be kept under paid quarantine.
Also, the domestic travellers have the option of skipping the COVID test, provided no symptoms are found during the thermal screening and on produce of COVID negative certificate obtained 48-hours prior to arrival. In case of symptomatic domestic travellers, compulsory testing would be undertaken by the government.
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Addressing the media Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said that the new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which will come into force from Thursday, has been prepared in consultation with all ruling as well as opposition MLAs.
Sawant said the govt has brought a change in the SOP to execute this new plan considering the strain on the testing facilities in Goa in view of the rising number of people arriving in Goa and delay in declaring the results.
“Until today, we have been doing compulsory testing of all the persons entering the State. The change in SOP has been brought as the testing facilities are getting stressed due to the increasing number of people arriving in the state. This has led to a lot of backlog and the test results get delayed,” he said.
The CM explained that foreign travellers, including seafarers will have to go for compulsory testing and paid quarantine pending results of the report; after which, on testing negative, they can go for home quarantine for 14 days with their family or for paid quarantine.
“The foreign travellers can choose paid quarantine of 14 days- seven days facility and seven days institutional- if he or she wants to keep their family away from being quarantined,” he explained.
Sawant added that domestic travellers will be allowed to enter the State without having to undergo the COVID-19 test.
Those who are not found to be carrying any COVID-19 symptoms will have this option, provided they produce a COVID negative certificate from an ICMR approved lab.
However, it is mandatory for those who choose to skip this test to observe a 14-day home quarantine along with the family members; while in case of symptomatic patients the test will be mandatory. In both the cases, if the person is found to be COVID positive, then that person will be shifted to the COVID-hospital.
“We will stamp all the home quarantined people,” he said, while adding that everyone entering the State will have to go through thermal scanner check.
As on June 9 evening, a total of 359 confirmed Corona cases have been reported in the State of which 108 are travellers from foreign countries or other part of the country. Of these 108, only three are non-Goans.
