A total of 125 passengers on a Milan-Amritsar charter flight were found to be Covid-positive when tested on arrival, government officials said on Thursday. Officials said there were a total of 179 passengers on the charter flight YU-661 that landed at the Amritsar airport at around 1.30pm on Wednesday.
Chaotic visuals from the Amritsar airport showed a large number of passengers waiting to leave and policemen trying to control the crowd. Many of the passengers questioned why they tested positive after Covid negative results in Italy.
Since Italy is one of the “at risk” countries according to the Union Health Ministry, all eligible passengers — 160 in this case — were tested for Covid-19 and 125 of them were found to be positive, they mentioned. Out of total 179 passengers, 19 were children or infant so they were exempt from on-arrival RT-PCR testing, they said.
The charter flight between Milan in Italy and Amritsar in Punjab was operated by Portuguese company Euro Atlantic Airways, they mentioned.
On Thursday, India reported over 90,000 new cases — a steep 65 per cent jump – with a surge in Omicron cases. Punjab has reported two Omicron cases so far.
The weekly positivity rate is 3.47 per cent; daily positivity rate is 6.43 per cent. Positivity rate is the percentage of all Covid tests that are actually positive. It will be high if the number of positive tests is high, or if the number of total tests is low.
