‘Wrong and baseless’: Air India on reports of passengers testing COVID-19 positive

Air India has quashed media reports about passengers onboard its flight to Rome testing positive for coronavirus on arrival at the Amritsar International Airport. The national carrier further mentioned that it does not operate any flights from Rome as of now.
 
“Several media houses have reported that passengers of Air India flight from Rome to Amritsar have been tested COVID positive. This is wrong and baseless. Air India doesn’t operate any flight from Rome currently,” Air India tweeted.

Instead, passengers onboard a EuroAtlantic Airways flight YU661 from Milan have tested positive for COVID-19. Out of 170 passengers, 125 have tested positive.
 
Reports earlier claimed that out of a total of 182 passengers onboard the Rome-Amritsar Air India flight, 125 have tested positive for the novel coronavirus at the Amritsar International airport. Amritsar International airport Director VK Seth has said that 125 passengers of AI's Italy-Amritsar flight have tested positive on arrival.
 
"125 passengers of Air India's Italy-Amritsar flight have tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival at Amritsar airport," Seth told news agency ANI. Earlier, these numbers were 100 and 84 respectively. All these passengers have been quarantined in Amritsar.
 
India’s Omicron count has reached 2,630 cases with 995 people getting discharged. States that have topped the Omicron tally are Maharashtra (797), Delhi (465), Rajasthan (236), Kerala (234), Karnataka (226) and Gujarat (206). Punjab has reported 2 Omicron cases so far along with states like Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam and Puducherry.
 
On the coronavirus front, India’s active caseload currently stands at 2, 85,401 and they account for less than one percent of total cases, i.e., 0.81 percent. Country’s COVID-19 recovery rate currently stands at 97.81 percent and daily positivity rate stands at 6.43 percent.
 
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has warned against presuming Omicron to be a mild disease. “Yes, oversimplified narratives can be dangerous. While we see lower risk of hospitalisation compared to Delta, to suggest that Omicron is “just a mild” disease is dangerous. Cases are astounding even with lower risk, we will see hospitals overwhelmed. Please be careful,” WHO COVID-19 technical lead Maria Van Kerkhove said.
 
(With inputs from Poulomi Saha)
 
(UPDATE: The story has been updated to reflect Air India’s statement and the name of the correct airline.)

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