Kerala Health Minister Veena George said that the state will have new mandatory quarantine stipulations for international travellers from October 4, on the basis of Union Health Ministry guidelines. Travellers from the UK will have to undergo 10-day quarantine at home or a destination address, according to the new guidelines. Meanwhile, passengers from South Africa, Brazil, and Europe will have to undergo seven-day quarantine mandatorily on arrival in the state.

The minister, in a statement, said that all international travellers irrespective of their vaccination status will have to take RT-PCR tests on reaching the airports in the state. Travellers from other countries will have to undergo self-monitoring for 14 days if they test negative in the RT- PCR test. Samples of passengers from countries like Botswana, the UK, New Zealand, South Africa, Brazil, European nations, Middle East, Bangladesh, China, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe will be sent for virus mutation tests.

The Union government had recently ordered a 10 days mandatory quarantine for passengers arriving from the UK irrespective of vaccination status as a reciprocal measure as the UK is considering those vaccinated with the Serum Institute of India-produced Covishield as unvaccinated.

Meanwhile, Kerala on October 3 reported 12,297 new COVID-19 cases. The state has the highest active cases in the country with 1.37 lakh people presently under treatment. Of this, 11% of people are hospitalised.