The Dutch police said on Sunday (28) that they had arrested a couple who had “fled” a mandatory quarantine ordered by the government.
The pair, which the AFP agency identified as a 30-year-old Spaniard and a 28-year-old Portuguese, would have arrived at Schiphol airport, in Amsterdam, on Friday (26). They came from South Africa, where the new variant of the Ômicron coronavirus was first identified last week.
Marechausse, the Dutch military police, “arrested a couple tonight who had fled a quarantined hotel,” police spokesman Stan Verberkt told CNN.
Marechausse did not specify whether any of them had tested positive for Covid-19. It is also not known how the police discovered that the couple had quarantined their hotel.
The pair were aboard one of two South African flights – from Johannesburg and Cape Town to Amsterdam – where at least 61 passengers tested positive for the virus, with 13 of those cases confirmed to be the Ômicron variant.
A total of 600 passengers from the two planes were quarantined at a hotel near the airport.
The couple were arrested “(on board) a plane that was about to take off for Spain at 6 pm local time, and the two people were transferred to the GGD (Dutch regional health authority),” added Verberkt.
Dutch authorities will decide whether the couple will be accused of compromising public safety.
GGD spokeswoman Stefanie van Waardenburg confirmed the couple were among passengers on a flight that landed in Schiphol from Johannesburg on Friday.
The health authority is carrying out further tests on passengers to see if any of them carry the new Ômicron variant, Waardenburg added.
The Netherlands is among the countries that have banned flights from the southern African region (including South Africa) following reports of the new variant.
* Translated material. Read the original here.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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