| Update: As it turns out, the lab being used at Amritsar Airport made an error, and is to blame for most of the positive coronavirus cases. You can find the original post below. |
Every so often we see a story of an incredible number of people on a flight testing positive for coronavirus, and this is one of those…
125 people on Milan to Amritsar flight test positive for COVID-19
On Wednesday, January 5, 2022, a charter flight operated from Milan, Italy (BGY), to Amritsar, India (ATQ). The roughly seven hour flight was operated by Portuguese charter company EuroAtlantic Airways (the airline seems to operate this route roughly once weekly). The flight in question was YU661, and it was operated by a 19-year-old Boeing 767-300 with the registration code CS-TST.
There were a total of 179 passengers on the flight, including 160 adults and 19 children. Since Italy is considered a “high risk” destination, all adult passengers had to be tested upon arrival. Well, of those 160 adult passengers, 125 have tested positive for coronavirus — that’s a 78% positivity rate.
All passengers who tested positive have been put into a quarantine facility until they recover.
Now, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe all international travelers arriving in India also need a PCR test within 72 hours of commencing their journey to India, right? So at least in theory, these passengers should have undergone pre-travel testing. I say “in theory” because some travelers choose to just fake test results, rather than actually getting tested.
How is this possible?!?
This is one of those situations where you can’t help just be confused. In the past we’ve seen some staggering numbers of coronavirus cases on a flight, like when 10% of KLM passengers on flights from South Africa tested positive.
But 125 or 160 adults on a particular flight testing positive for coronavirus, especially with a pre-travel testing requirement? I feel like if three days before a trip you gathered 160 people who actively had coronavirus, you wouldn’t get this number of people testing positive for coronavirus by the time they arrived in India.
Yes, omicron is incredibly contagious, but this simply defies all odds, especially when you consider that everyone presumably had coronavirus before they got on the plane (because you typically won’t test positive hours after exposure).
There has to be more to this? Did all 160 adults attend the same event a couple of days before the flight, and make out with one another? Are the tests in Amritsar not working properly, and they’ve swapped the results? This is truly on a different level…
Bottom line
A EuroAtlantic Airways charter flight from Milan to Amritsar set new records, as 125 of 160 adults on the flight tested positive for coronavirus upon arrival. I’m speechless as to how this is even possible…
What do you make of the number of positive coronavirus cases on this flight from Italy to India?
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