“It’s a time bomb”Anatole Kramer, a French passenger on one of the two flights from South Africa which landed in Amsterdam on Friday and in which 61 passengers tested positive for Covid-19, told franceinfo on Saturday (November 27th). Analyzes are underway to find out if this is the new Omicron variant that has appeared on South African soil. Anatole Kramer, tested negative and back in France, worries about having been contaminated while waiting at the airport in conditions “deplorable”.
The businessman was returning from a business trip to Namibia, passing through Johannesburg. Before the flight, all the passengers presented a negative test of less than 72 hours but on arrival, the Dutch authorities prohibited the passengers from disembarking. “An hour before arriving, the captain tells us that we cannot go out because of the new variant. We were left without any additional information all day, we were on the plane for six hours”, he says. Some passengers get annoyed and already fall off the mask.
After these six hours of waiting, 600 passengers are finally “parked in buses” then taken to waiting rooms at the airport for testing. “Nothing was organized”, says the Frenchman, “There were three testers, it took a long time. We were told that we would have the results in three hours, finally it took ten hours!”
During this waiting time, no real health protocol has been put in place, says Anatole Kramer: “It looked more like detention than organized confinement, there was no frost, no masks, no distancing, there were 300 of us in a waiting room which was not very large, tight against each other”. At the end of the day, sandwiches are delivered in boxes, without individual packaging: “everyone threw themselves on the crates of food, we all stuck our hands in the same crate, it’s terrifying the lack of preparation“, he wonders.
When the test results finally arrive, airport staff divide the passengers into two groups, “on the right the negatives, on the left the positives.” 61 people, or 10% of passengers, are positive. “We were all surprised to see the group grow so much,” says Anatole Kramer. Positive passengers were instructed to isolate themselves, at the hotel for foreigners or at home for the Dutch. “All the others were able to continue their journey through Europe”, explains, relieved, the Frenchman.
“We spent the day glued to each other with a lot of agitation, people got angry, took off their masks, I spoke to positive people who spit on me”
Anatole Kramerto franceinfo
He continued his journey to France, a train to Paris then to the South-West. “I didn’t have any information on what to do.” Anatole Kramer fears he may have been infected: “I’m doing my best, I’m very careful and I’ll be tested on Monday “ but according to him “It’s a time bomb, a blast bomb that could spread all over Europe.” He fears that the number of contaminations is much higher than that announced by the Dutch authorities.