Positive for Covid-19, a couple escape from a quarantine hotel and are arrested before the plane leaves the Netherlands

forty? So much for them! The Dutch gendarmerie announced on Sunday that it had arrested in Plane at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport A couple “escaped” from a hotel where South African Covid-19 patients were quarantined. “The arrests took place while the plane was about to take off,” the Royal Police (gendarmerie) said on Twitter, adding that the couple had been handed over to health authorities.

Those two passengers arrested on Sunday were among 61 passengers who tested positive for Covid-19 on Saturday after disembarking from South Africa. They were quarantined in a hotel near the airport. “The Omicron variant has been identified so far In 13 positive tests. But the investigation is not over yet. “The new variant can be found in other samples,” the National Institute of Public Health (RIVM) said Sunday.

According to the Dutch newspaper telegraphSecurity guards usually have to make sure that people who have been tested for Covid-19 stay in their rooms. Outside, the police are watching. No one yet knows how the couple got out of the hotel or how the policemen learned of their escape. Dutch TV channel At5 It is reported that the couple were on a plane bound for Spain when they were arrested.

The investigation will have to establish the circumstances of this leak. “It is currently difficult to know if the couple will be prosecuted or not,” AT5 said. In theory, the couple faces up to four years in prison for violating the quarantine.