An official from Chennai airport confirmed to TNM that footfall at domestic terminals have reduced in the recent days by about 15-30%.
Chennai airport on Thursday began screening its domestic passengers, especially those arriving from Kerala and Delhi, for symptoms of COVID-19. This comes a day after Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar announced that passengers will be screened at the domestic terminals too in addition to international ones.
While an official from Chennai Airport had confirmed that screening domestic passengers was already on cards, the sheer volume of passengers from domestic terminals in comparison to the international travellers was a cause for concern. Necessary infrastructure too was being planned to accommodate screening large number of passengers, so as to not inconvenience them.
#COVID19 update: Screening of domestic passengers commences at @aaichnairport. Arriving pax. particularly from Kerala& Delhi are being screened. @DoHFWTN,Govt. of TN has initiated the screening process to keep the #COVID19 threat under check.@MoCA_GoI @MoHFW_INDIA @AAI_Official pic.twitter.com/pfUhdOyAQN
— Chennai (MAA) Airport (@aaichnairport) March 19, 2020
On Thursday, Tamil Nadu confirmed a third case of COVID-19 – a 21-year-old student who had arrived from Dublin, Ireland. On Wednesday evening, the second positive case of COVID-19 from the state had been reported. The second patient, a 20-year-old, had taken a train from Delhi to reach Chennai on March 12; and upon experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, admitted himself to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital in Chennai on March 17. He is currently isolated and under surveillance.
While Health Department is yet to deduce his source of infection, the vulnerability of contracting the virus while traveling within the country cannot be completely ruled out. Earlier this week, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami had urged people to avoid travelling to other states in the country.
An official from Chennai airport confirmed to TNM that footfall at domestic terminals has reduced in the recent days by about 15-30%. Many domestic and international flights have been cancelled. On Thursday alone, the number of cancelled flights was at 118. This included 61 domestic flights and 57 international flights.
As for the railway stations, help desks have been set up by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare at Chennai Central, Egmore and Tambaram stations. These stations are also thermal screening both incoming and outgoing passengers from the station daily. An official from Southern Railways assured TNM that the volume of passengers coming in for screening is manageable.
“We’ve been able to do it. It may be difficult only during peak hours and since it is restricted to passenger trains coming from other states, we’ve been able to keep track. In fact the volume of people traveling by trains has reduced because of this novel coronavirus pandemic,” he explain. He added that footfalls have reduced by 40% in the railway stations.
However, passengers boarding suburban trains are not being screened in the city. Trains are being sanitised at the yards.
Source: The News Minute