Omicron Scare: 100 Back From Abroad, Untraceable In Maharashtra’s Thane District

All those returnees to KDMC limits from all ''at risk'' nations have to undergo seven-day home quarantine after which the Covid-19 test will be conducted on the eighth day.

A health worker wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) interacts with an arriving passengers at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. (Image: AFP)

Mumbai: At a time when countries are grappling with the latest Omicron variant, Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Corporation (KDMC) chief Vijay Suryavanshi on Tuesday informed that 109 out of 295 recent foreign returnees to the township in the Thane district were currently untraceable.

According to Suryavanshi, the mobile phones of some of these people were switched off while the last addresses mentioned by many travellers were found to be locked, as per news agency PTI report. All those returnees to KDMC limits from all ''at risk'' nations have to undergo seven-day home quarantine after which the Covid-19 test will be conducted on the eighth day.

"Even if it is negative, they will have to undergo another 7-day home quarantine and it would be the duty of housing society members to ensure the norm is not violated. Marriages, gatherings etc are being watched to curb violations," Suryavanshi said. "Some 72 per cent of the people in KDMC have taken the first dose of the vaccine and 52 per cent are fully vaccinated," he added.

One Omicron case was detected in a Dombivali resident recently. Two more people tested positive for the Omicron variant of Covid-19 in Maharashtra on Monday, taking the state's count to 10. Both the patients do not have any symptoms, ANI reported.

A 37-year-old man who returned from South Africa and his 36-year-old female friend who returned from the United States on November 25 have been detected with the Omicron variant.

The Maharashtra government said the patients had taken Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine. Five high-risk and 315 low-risk contacts of the patients have been traced so far, ANI reported.

This is the second day in a row that Maharashtra has reported Omicron cases. With the latest cases in Mumbai, India now has 23 Omicron patients.

Cases of the Omicron variant have been reported from places in Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka and Delhi. The first two cases of the variant were reported from Bengaluru last week.