A 70-year-old woman travelled from Delhi to Bengaluru with her 36-year-old son despite an elder son testing positive for Covid-19 in the national capital and the entire family being his primary contacts.
The elder son was later revealed to be infected with the Omicron variant of the novel coronavirus. The woman and the 36-year-old also tested positive upon reaching Bengaluru on December 6. The genomic sequencing results of their swab samples — announced on December 16 — revealed that they, too, are infected with Omicron.
The woman's husband (a Parkinson's patient), 32-year-old daughter-in-law and a four-year-old grandson also tested positive, and their samples were sent for genomic sequencing on December 17. The results are awaited. All have been admitted to Sakra Hospital in Bengaluru. The family's independent villa in Bellandur and an apartment in Yemalur have been sealed.
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The woman and the second son told the authorities that they travelled to Bengaluru because they had tested negative at the Delhi airport.
The Karnataka health department says it cannot put extra curbs on interstate domestic flyers or travellers from non-at-risk countries because all states have to follow the Centre's guidelines.
Dr Surendra R, Deputy Health Officer, Mahadevapura Zone, BBMP, said that the entire family had attended a wedding in Udaipur, Rajasthan, before travelling to Delhi.
The 36-year-old man's brother and another family member tested positive at Delhi airport on December 3, the rest of the family tested negative. So while those two stayed back in Delhi, the rest of the family flew to Bengaluru. When the brother's genomic sequencing result came positive for Omicron, it was already December 11, he added.
State Health Commissioner D Randeep told DH, "Presently, there are no curbs or pre-mandated tests for domestic air passengers. We would need to take a call subsequently."
As far as the 52-year-old Belagavi Omicron patient is concerned, he could not be stopped from taking a connecting flight from Bengaluru (even as his RT-PCR results were awaited) because he had travelled from Nigeria, which is not on the list of at-risk countries.
Randeep said, "He was tested under the 2% random sampling category for travellers from non-at-risk countries. That explains why we could not ask him not to leave the airport for catching a connecting flight to Belagavi. We have to abide by the union government's guidelines for non-at-risk countries' travellers. We can't have extra curbs. We are anyway not testing all from non-at-risk countries and they are not asked to wait at the airport."
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