‘Quarantine All Passengers Onboard That Flight’
As Bermuda now has eight positive Covid-19 cases from the October 27th BA flight from London, the Ministry of Health “has made the decision to quarantine all passengers onboard that flight.”
During yesterday’s [Nov 5] release of test results, a Government spokesperson said, “As of yesterday, Bermuda now has eight positive cases from the 27 October BA 2233 flight from London.
“As such, and out of an abundance of caution, the Ministry of Health has made the decision to quarantine all passengers onboard that flight as per the Quarantine [COVID-19] [No.3] Order 2020. Yesterday passengers received a letter from the Ministry advising them of this directive as well as a hard copy notification when they attended their Day 8 testing yesterday.
The Minister of Health Kim Wilson said: “As the number of positive cases from the BA 2233 27 October flight increases, the Ministry of Health feels the quarantining of all passengers until 10 November is the appropriate action to take.
“Despite the fact that travellers on this flight may have tested negative on arrival and on Day 4, the incubation period for COVID-19 is up to 14 days, which means that the virus may be undetectable in your body during that time as the virus replicates itself.
“We understand the inconvenience this decision may cause these travellers but ask that they consider the worst case scenario should we not act in this way.
“I ask that all passengers follow the quarantine instructions provided to them and monitor themselves for symptoms as per public health instruction.
“Tomorrow I will provide an update regarding any positives identified during the day 8 test for this flight.”
“The following instructions were issued to all travellers from this flight yesterday:
- “After attending for Day 8 testing today, immediately return to your accommodation. Strictly adhere to physical distancing [6 feet]; especially from vulnerable people, housemates and people not on the flight.
- “Use good hygiene [covering your coughs and sneezes, hand-washing] and mask-wearing.
- “Avoid all public spaces where there is close contact with others including all public transport [taxis, ferries and buses].
- “Take your own temperature and check yourself for symptoms twice per day. If your temperature is over 100.4F or 38C, or you develop symptoms please isolate and contact the Epidemiology and Surveillance Unit. Also seek medical care, with the assistance of your guest accommodation, as needed.
- “A special location for Day 14 testing will be made and communicated to you.
- “A member of the COVID-19 surveillance and case management team will remain in contact with you over the quarantine period.”
As the island and world deals with the Covid-19 pandemic, we are doing our best to provide timely and accurate information, and you can find more information on the links below.
- All: Our coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic here
- Official: The Bermuda Government website here
- World Stats: Live graph of all cases worldwide here
- Bermuda Stats: Chart of the Bermuda stats here
- Timeline: Visual look at the timeline here
- Comprehensive: Our Covid-19 website here
Ridiculous.
Why are people who tested negative being punished?
Why didn’t the pre departure test pick up the positive cases? 8 on one flight? Bad batch of testing equipment?
How many persons in total were on that flight? What are BA cleaning protocols in between flight legs? Have any of the BA cabin crew been tested prior to getting on the flight? How do travelers know that they are being protected from cabin crew? Do BA flight crews require arrival tests, and day 4 tests? Are they allowed to freely roam around the island?
Excellent questions!
And also the people the passengers came into contact with after arrival….Airline agents, Health officials, Immigration and Customs officers, Security officers, taxi drivers. All it takes is one person to be exposed and things go downhill.
When did we start replacing “people” with “persons”? Although grammatically correct, I look forward to the day when we are collectively referred to as “people” again.
Thank you !
The pre-departure test didn’t pick up the virus for the same reason other people tested negative and then tested positive. Their viral load wasn’t high enough to be detected.
I am still amazed that Bermudians are not up in arms challenging the Government in their stance on the protocols on Covid19 Pandemic.
There are none of these passengers or any passengers from the time the airport reopened, that have had to be hospitalized, or are, or have been in critical condition, these same folk if tested for the flu like symptoms would come up negative also
It’s important to be cautious and take precautions, but let’s not tare the ox out of it, and all the cases of late, none have been serious enough for any passenger to be hospitalized.
Please also note that Bermudians don’t need to get pre-tested before arrival on island, so some of these folk that have tested positive could have only found to be positive upon arrival, because that could be the only test that they have done, while on the other hand their are those that could have been pre-tested and found to be negative before arrival, but the Bermuda test is showing them to be negative, to many scenarios, just to say it’s one way or the other, but I do believe that the testing’s in Bermuda are done very well and our system is by far one of the best, even though I look at the overall covid19 as a Plandemic.
1). I’m not understanding why it isn’t mandatory for Bermudians to be tested before they come back to the island.
2). When your results come back from the airport test and read negative you’re allowed to go see friends and family and roam about. Now you want them to quarantine after seeing people? I’m a bit confused. So do the people they’ve been in contact with have to quarantine too?
When are they going to start making people quarantine regardless when they fly in? Far too many cases are being positive on days 4 and 8 and thus has to complete contact tracing! Just make these folks quarantine regardless so to avoid any of this!!!
Is all of this travel absolutely necessary? Cases are skyrocketing in the US and in the UK. At what point do we close our borders again? We are at an advantage that we can do so. Do we really have that much tourism alive right now and is it really worth it?
Yes, the tourists are necessary. You can’t just sit at home and raise everyone else’s taxes, believe it or not.
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