On Wednesday evening, Tamil Nadu Minister for Health and Family Welfare C Vijayabaskar had announced that passengers arriving at domestic terminals in the Chennai airport will be screened. However, several who arrived in Chennai in these past two days were quick to point out on Twitter that this has not been the case at Chennai airport.
The state was already screening its international passengers as is the protocol across the country. The following day, the Minister also tweeted that the screenings will be extended to all domestic terminals in other airports in the state. This announcement was also confirmed by Chennai airport on Thursday via a tweet. As a start, passengers coming in from Delhi and Kerala were screened on March 19.
#coronaupdate:Screening for #Covid19 at domestic terminals/airports https://t.co/nl1RCHC00B,am at the Chennai domestic terminal with Officers inspecting d screening,this will b extended to other airports in the state.Will keep informed. @aaichnairport #TN_Together_AgainstCorona pic.twitter.com/ElK39D3Yrh
— Dr C Vijayabaskar (@Vijayabaskarofl) March 19, 2020
#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
Actor Kasturi Shankar who returned from Hyderabad to Chennai at 12.30 am on March 20 says that from the moment her flight landed to the time when she boarded her car outside the airport, no one stopped her for screening. “I landed at 12.30 am at Chennai airport from Hyderabad. There was no sign of screening being done, not even a Purell (hand sanitiser) vending kiosk. You would have thought they might screen you when you enter the aerobridge. But there was nothing,” she says.
Ravi*, a 42-year-old resident of Chennai who had travelled to Port Blair on Thursday, says that he was screened on arrival there but not in Tamil Nadu.
“I came at 1.30pm in the afternoon on Friday and found that there was no screening in the Chennai airport. My concern is that we should have been screened both when we were leaving Port Blair and when we reached Chennai. Such a process will at least assure you that you are not travelling with anyone who has symptoms of the virus and will guide you on whether to be under quarantine or not,” he says.
Thirty-year-old Srinivas who came to Chennai from Bengaluru on Thursday at 8.30 pm, says that he walked out of the domestic terminal as he would on any other day.
"I wasn't surprised because Tamil Nadu had maintained that they will only test people who have travel history pointing to other countries which have COVID-19 cases," he says. "But when I came home, I found out that the state government had said that they will be testing domestic passengers as well," he adds.
Airport authorities have maintained that the screening process was underway.
Speaking to TNM, Chennai airport Director Suneel Dutt told TNM, “All domestic flight passengers are being screened on arrival, irrespective of which city they are flying in from. This is a state government decision."
When questioned on the screening protocol in place at the domestic terminals in Chennai airport, if all passengers were being screened irrespective of the cities they came from, Vijayabaskar said, "First we started with Delhi and Kerala flights. There are 320 domestic flights arriving daily, 16,000 passengers arriving daily. We are screening them in three shifts. You can go check."
Kolandasamy, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, was unavailable for comment.