Coronavirus: case identified on Tui’s flight from Zante to Glasgow

A passenger who flew to Glasgow from a Greek island tested positive for coronavirus.

Tui Airline said it knew that a passenger who had flown from Zante to Glasgow on 23 August had subsequently tested positive.

Tui said Public Health Scotland informed him on August 26 of the positive case.

He relayed the contact information of the passengers in the two rows in front and two rows behind the positive case to contact trackers.

Tui also immediately contacted customers directly to inform them.

At the time of Tui flight TOM 1745, the passenger was showing no symptoms.

• Is Greece on the quarantine list?

On board there are precautions to hinder the spread of the virus: masks must be worn and Tui said this is enforced by the flight crew.

Passengers must remain in their seats and may not queue or loiter in the aisle, for example to talk to other passengers or queue for toilets.

However, physical distancing is not imposed as the seats are not left empty.

‘Covidiots’

Confirmation of a positive case on the Zante flight to Glasgow follows news that passengers on two other Tui flights from Zante were also confirmed to carry the virus.

Groups returning from the Greek island, bound for Cardiff and Plymouth, tested positive for the virus in recent weeks.

• Coronavirus cases confirmed on flight from Zante to Cardiff
• Plymouth teens test positive after vacation in Greece

Nearly 200 passengers who were on the Cardiff flight have begun two weeks of self-isolation, after 16 passengers on the flight tested positive.

One traveler told the BBC that Tui’s flight was full of “covidiots” and “inept crew who didn’t care about anything.” Another claimed there was “not much” enforcement of the rules, including making sure customers were wearing their masks correctly.

Do passengers returning from Zante have to isolate themselves?

Travelers returning to the UK from Greece are currently exempt from quarantine.

While the four nations may make different decisions about quarantine restrictions, one of the measures taken into consideration is what percentage of the population is infected each week.

The decision to add a country to the quarantine list is usually made when 20 or more people out of 100,000 in a country are infected for seven days. But other factors are also considered.

While Greece saw an increase in cases in recent weeks, this has stabilized at a rate of 13.7.

More contact trackers to monitor returning passengers

Passengers returning from certain countries do not have to self-quarantine, but those returning from others will be asked to self-isolate for 14 days.

The Scottish government announced Tuesday that more contact trackers will be recruited to support quarantine efforts.

The £ 1 million funding will pay an additional 25 members of staff who will contact passengers returning from locations that are not exempt from quarantine.

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “Getting in touch with people is vital to ensuring that those who must be quarantined for 14 days do so.”

He said the original plan was to make contact with about 20% of travelers, up to a maximum of 450 per week.

“At the time, it was considered to be a solid sample size given the number of flights and passengers affected,” he said. But as the number of flights to Scotland has increased, so has the number of contacted passengers, up to about 600 returning passengers per week.