Chief Minister of the Indian capital city, Arvind Kejriwal, on Tuesday urged the federal government to immediately ban international flights from countries affected by the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
He questioned the Indian government over its delay in this regard in a post on social media.
“Many countries have stopped incoming flights from Omicron-affected countries.
“Why are we delaying? Even in the first wave, we had delayed stopping foreign flights.
“Most of the foreign flights come to Delhi, Delhi is the most affected,” he noted.
He urged Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, to put the ban in place immediately.
On Monday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said the new variant posed a very high global risk and could have severe consequences where there were surges in cases with the newly found variant.
Kejriwal also shared a local news report that a returnee from South Africa tested positive for COVID-19 in the northern Chandigarh city.
He said two contacts of the case were found infected and their samples would be sent for genome sequencing.
Earlier Kejriwal also wrote a letter to Modi, urging him to “immediately stop flights” from the Omicron-affected countries.
He said any delay in this regard may prove harmful, if affected person entered India.
Meanwhile, Kejriwal is scheduled to be at a meeting on Tuesday to review preparedness of hospitals in the capital New Delhi over threat of the Omicron variant.
Indian media reports said the Maharashtra state government had also decided to request the federal government to suspend flights from areas where the new variant had been reported.(Xinhua/NAN)