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The American shared a video from her quarantine cabin on the plane on TikTok
Photo: @marisaefotieo / Tik Tok
An American teacher put herself into self-imposed quarantine in the on-board toilet of an international flight to protect her fellow travelers.
Marisa Fotieo stayed there for four hours.
After her throat hurt halfway from Chicago to Iceland, the woman said she had carried out a self-test that she had brought with her on board.
"After what felt like two seconds, the second line was already visible on the test," the NBC woman is quoted as saying.
"There are 150 people on the plane, my biggest fear right now is that I might have infected them."
Marisa Fotieo on NBC
The case, which occurred three days before Christmas Eve, became known mainly through a video she shot herself, which the woman shared on the social network TikTok.
"Best regards to Icelandair for my VIP quarantine accommodation" is the title of the clip that is supposed to show Fotieo in the aircraft toilet and has at the moment been liked 1.5 million times and seen four million times.
Criticism at the start of the trip
But there is also criticism on the platform and in the media.
The tenor: How can it be that someone with symptoms even gets on board an international flight?
The teacher defends herself by saying that she had already carried out two PCR tests before departure, but both of them were negative.
In addition, she was vaccinated and boosted.
It is not yet known whether other passengers have been infected.
The USA is currently suffering from an extreme wave of the Omicron variant.
Thousands of flights have been canceled in the past few days, among other things because the on-board staff is absent due to health problems.
Marisa Fotieo has not yet reached her actual travel destination, Switzerland.
As she said in an interview with CNN, she has been in the ten-day quarantine that is required by law since arriving in Iceland.
From there she is now sending more videos.
After all, no longer from a toilet, but from a Red Cross hotel.