Vikramaditya
Port Blair, Feb 02: As Andaman and Nicobar Islands have reported zero Active COVID-19 cases, local residents are now demanding to stop the Rapid Antigen Test, which was made mandatory for all inter-district and inter-island passengers.
Considering the surge in COVID-19 cases in August first week, the RAT was made mandatory and the rate for each Rapid Antigen Test was initially fixed to Rs. 500 but later it was decreased to Rs. 200 per test.
According to public, conduct of Rapid Antigen Test at Andaman Trunk Road and all Ports, does not serve any purpose at present, as Andaman and Nicobar Islands have already recorded zero COVID-19 active cases and since January 01, 2021 hardly any passenger has been detected COVID-19 positive in RAT Test.
“The Rapid Antigen Tests are not only expensive and unnecessary at present but also waste a lot of time for inter-district and inter-island passengers. A passenger has to waste nearly 3 to 4 hours to undergo RAT and get a negative result,” said Mr. R Alager Swami, the former Up Adhyaksh of North and Middle Andaman Zilla Parishad.
This is high time to stop RAT for local passengers in Andaman, he added.
It is believed that considering the expected visit of President of India to Andaman and Nicobar Islands on February 24, 2021, the RAT test, the Administration is not willing to stop Rapid Antigen Tests now, to ensure that travelling to Andaman remain completely safe for the VVIP.
This is also a fact that as the health infrastructure in most of the remote Islands is poor, the local Administration is not ready to take any chances to stop RAT.
Many strongly believe that only because of mandatory Rapid Antigen Test for inter-district and inter Island passengers, COVID-19 virus could not wreak havoc in remote Islands in the month of August 2020, when there was a massive surge in COVID-19 cases in Andaman.
Other than mandatory RAT, the Andaman and Nicobar Administration had also made it mandatory for all incoming passengers arriving at Veer Savarkar International Airport of Port Blair to mandatorily carry RT – PCR negative test report issued from an ICMR recognized lab, from 26th December, 2020 onwards. As per the new guideline, the RT – PCR test should have been taken by every incoming passenger within 48 hours prior to commencement of the journey.
Although this direction is causing some inconvenience to incoming passengers but this is yielding positive results as of now and only for this Andaman and Nicobar Islands have zero COVID-19 active cases.
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