125 passengers of Air India's Italy-Amritsar chartered flight test COVID-19 positive at Amritsar Airport

Atleast 125 passengers of an international chartered flight from Italy have tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival at Amritsar airport, Airport Director VK Seth said on Thursday. There were 179 passengers onboard the Air India's Italy-Amritsar flight, including 19 children

The chartered flight from Milan arrived in Amritsar around 1.30 pm. The flight made a technical halt at Tbilisi (Georgia), according to officials. The passengers who have tested COVID-19 positive will be sent to institutional quarantine, said state health officials. 

All passengers above 18 years were tested for COVID-19 on arrival at the Amritsar airport because Italy is one of the high risk European countries for Omicron, according to the Union Health Ministry.

Punjab | 125 passengers of an international chartered flight from Italy have tested positive for Covid-19 on arrival at Amritsar airport pic.twitter.com/YGBpArLC0T

— ANI (@ANI) January 6, 2022

Chaotic visuals were seen at the Amritsar airport where large number of passengers were waiting to leave. Policemen were seen trying to manage the crowd. Meanwhile, India on Thursday saw the biggest single-day jump of 495 Omicron cases, taking the total number of infections from the variant to 2,630. 

Maharashtra reported the maximum number of cases at 797. The country reported 90,928 fresh COVID-19 infections, the highest in over 200 days.