The health department has withdrawn its circular dated December 31, which mandated seven days' home quarantine for international passengers arriving from China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Thailand and South Korea.
Home quarantine had been mandated then as per the recommendations of the state Covid technical advisory committee (TAC). Karnataka was the only state to implement this rule.
The department’s new circular dated January 2 says the previous circular has been withdrawn and that GoI guidelines on international passengers should be followed.
GoI guidelines only mandate a negative RT-PCR test report for people coming from these countries. However, the state's new circular does not specify the reasons for the withdrawal.
Rarely has the state government withdrawn an order that was given based on TAC recommendations.
Speaking to DH, T K Anil Kumar, principal secretary (health), said that the order was withdrawn to comply with GoI guidelines.
“We have just aligned ourselves with the GoI guidelines as usual. International travel is the subject matter of GoI and a uniform process is followed across the country. And the GoI guidelines specify what to do with people from these countries,” he said.
The GoI guidelines came out on December 29 and 30, and the state’s quarantine circular on December 31. However, Kumar said that they saw a physical copy of the GoI guidelines only on Monday, January 2, and the decision to withdraw the state circular was taken then.