Institutional quarantine must for Kerala, Maharashtra travellers without negative RT-PCR report: BBMP

Bengaluru, Aug 03: In order to contain the spread of COVID- 19, the civic agency of Bengaluru has made institutional quarantine mandatory for those entering Karnataka from Kerala, Maharashtra without RT-PCR reports.

Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) chief commissioner Gaurav Gupta on Monday said that separate teams have been deployed at major bus stops and railway stations to screen the large number of people coming from Kerala and Maharashtra.

"Those entering the city will have to bring a negative RT-PCR test report with them. If they don''t, we will conduct the test. Till the time their test report arrives, they will be under institutional quarantine," the Chief Commissioner of the agency Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Gaurav Gupta told reporters here.

Meanwhile, there are lot of confusion about institutional quarantine rules in Karnataka. Few reports have published its mandatory for travellers from all states. However, there were no such orders passed as of now.

Sources told OneIndia that in case of no RT-PCR test report, swabs will be collected for tests and travellers will remain in institutional quarantine until the report is out.

This measure came into effect from today, Gaurav Gupta said after a meeting with the senior police officials and others. Gupta said the zonal-level BBMP officals were coordinating with the jurisdictional police.

To a query, the Chief Commissioner said the institutional quarantine has been made a must at a place designated by the BBMP.

The State has been seeing a rise in the COVID-19 cases after a decline from about 1,386 cases a day on July 12 to 1,875 as on Sunday.