Half Of Passengers On Two Flights From China To Italy Test Positive For COVID

Category: World News

Nearly half of the passengers on two separate flights this week from China to Milan tested positive for COVID, and health officials in Italy have announced they will test all travelers coming from the East Asian country.

The two flights of sick passengers arrived at Malpensa Airport from China on Monday, Bloomberg reported.

On the first flight, 35 out of 92 passengers tested positive for the virus, while on the second, 62 passengers out of 120 were infected, according to Lombardy region’s health chief Guido Bertolaso.

The passengers who tested positive have been isolated, and officials have ramped up their contact tracing efforts.

Italy’s Health Minister Orazio Schillaci on Wednesday announced that tests would be required “for all passengers from China and in transit through Italy.”

Officials say the measure will be critical to prevent the spread of new variants of the virus.

“The measure is essential to ensure the surveillance and identification of any variants of the virus in order to protect the Italian population,” Schillaci said, adding that further details of the plan will be provided later.

Schillaci’s announcement follows the reversal of China’s strict “zero-COVID” policies earlier this month. The sudden change has spurred China’s largest outbreak of COVID infections since the start of the pandemic and left hospitals swamped, turning away ambulances and unable to care for some critical patients.