RECORD !!! 47 positive passengers on the same flight
A new (negative) record has been set aboard a plane that landed in Hong Kong: as many as 47 people are [...]
HKG
A new (negative) record was set aboard a plane that landed at Hong Kong: well 47 people were found positive for Coronavirus, and immediately quarantined. An affair that seems unbelievable, occurring at an airport that is very careful about anti-infection regulations. Not to mention, airlines found with too many positives on board receive a temporary ban from Hong Kong from operating in the country.
In this article:
But how was it possible to board 47 positive people on a flight? Let's go over the story again.
The story of the flight with 47 positives on board
The affair dates back to last April 4. The Vistara Flight 6395 (Indian airline, formed in 2013 from the joint venture between Singapore Airlines and Tata Sons), which departed from New Delhi, landed at Hong Kong airport with 188 people on board. The passengers of the Airbus A321 neo were immediately swabbed -- as per government protocol -- and 25 of them were found positive. All travelers were therefore placed in isolation, and 14 days after landing, they were tested again. The result? The number of positives had reached 47.
The Vistara flight thus broke the record of last June 20, 2020, when a Emirates Boeing 777-300ER flight landed in Hong Kong with 27 positives. As a result, the airline has been "banned" and will not be able to operate flights to Hong Kong for two weeks, something that has already happened to many other carriers in recent months.
Despite Hong Kong's requirement that tourists heading to the country submit to a test in the 72 hours prior to departure, the Airbus came in straight as a ticking time bomb. The percentage of positives on board, considering it was traveling at 50% of capacity, was 74%. Which is quite worrying.
47 passengers on Vistara flight UK6395 from New Delhi to Hong Kong on April 4th have now tested positive for COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/Mb4wCEPMPl
- Aaron Busch (@tripperhead) April 18, 2021
How could this happen?
Of course, the real question is, how is it possible to have a Coronavirus negative test, board an airplane and test positive upon landing? The various studies conducted so far are conflicting, although many experts affirm the almost complete impossibility of contracting the virus on the plane. IATA has also confirmed this: The number of confirmed airborne cases since the start of the pandemic is 44 out of 1.2 billion (or 1 in every 27 million). It is understood, however, that, especially in the early stages of the health emergency, testing at airports was almost nonexistent.
Some people, therefore, are afraid of flying. In airplanes, spaces are confined, the stay on board is long, the environment is closed. How to defend themselves? By wearing a face mask and sanitizing your hands often, of course. But also, if possible, by breaking up the trip into several flights (the longer you stay on board, the more you expose yourself to infection, in case there is a positive on the plane). In this regard, a study conducted by the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi analyzed the case of a 10-hour long flight that arrived in Vietnam in March 2020 with a symptomatic passenger on board. The man, due to his long stay on board, infected 16 passengers on that occasion (12 of whom sat in business class with him, one or two seats apart). Just so One positive passenger on board to put others at risk.
However, there is no cause for alarm. In the early stages of the pandemic, there was no requirement to mask on board or even to submit to a pre-flight swab. True, a person can test positive for the swab one day, since it was done too short a distance from the infection, and develop the virus soon after. But we are talking about small probabilities. All the more so now, when precautions are quite different and companies are taking strict measures.
