Himachal Borders Open: What are new quarantine and other rules?

After more than 5.5 months Himachal borders are now open for tourists and other people to visit Himachal Pradesh without any restriction. Travel restrictions were imposed in March, 2020 due to nation wide lockdown that was announced due to Covid -19 pandemic. 

People have suffered a lot due to these restriction as even people belonging to Himachal were not allowed to visit their native place in Himachal Pradesh.

After Himachal Govt. announced yesterday that now anyone can come to Himachal Pradesh or go to other places without any e-pass or registration, people are still confused regarding quarantine rules and covid test etc.

What new rules say?

• No pass or registration required to visit Himachal or for any kind of round trip outside Himachal Pradesh. Hence, everything related to travel is like before 24th march 2020.

• Anyone coming to Himachal Pradesh will have to undergo 10 days home quarantine as a precaution. However, it may not get strictly implemented as it would be difficult to differentiate between tourists and others who have their own home or relatives in the state.

• There is no list  or differentiation of high load city or states. Hence no institutional quarantine for anyone.

• HRTC buses will still not ply to and from the state. Hence people have to use their own travel arrangements to visit Himachal Pradesh.

• No traveller have to bring negative covid report. However, anyone in the state can be asked to undergo covid test during random sampling.

New Discharge policy

Now covid positive patients undergoing treatment can be discharged after 10 days from hospital without conducting repeat covid test. The  earlier  criteria  for  discharging  RT-PCR  positive  were  

(a)  chest  radiograph  has  cleared  and  (b)  two consecutive negative test results on RT-PCR.