An
American Airlines
plane that took off from
Miami (
United States) for
London
(United Kingdom) had to return because one of the passengers refused to wear a mask, the airline said in a statement. "Flight 38 returned to Miami due to a disturbing customer who refused to comply with the federal requirement to wear a face mask," American Airlines said. The Boeing 777, carrying
129 passengers and 14 crew members
, was greeted on its return to Florida by police. "Once the plane arrived at the gate, the passenger was escorted out of the plane without incident," a police official told CNN.
American Airlines, for its part, clarified that the customer involved in this incident has been placed on the company's "internal rejection list", "pending further investigation".
The US Civil Aviation Regulatory Authority (FAA) established a zero tolerance policy in January 2021 for passengers who refuse to wear face masks, with airline crews facing a very large number of reported cases of verbal abuse or physical harm by people who refused to comply with this obligation.
(HANDLE).
TONGA
- A plane loaded with aid that left Australia and headed for Tonga was also forced to return due to Covid. A case of Covid was discovered on board. The Guardian reports it. The supplies have been loaded onto another plane that has already taken off. The archipelago in the Pacific remains
an area without coronavirus
and has a very strict policy to avoid any type of risk.
AFRICA -
Meanwhile, the cases of Covid in Africa
are decreasing "significantly".
This was stated by the WHO, also reporting a decline in deaths for the first time since the appearance of the Omicron variant. The regional office for Africa of the United Nations health agency has announced that new infections have
decreased by 20%
in the week up to last Sunday, compared to 7 days earlier, while deaths recorded a decline of 8%. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, however, called for caution, stressing - reports the Guardian - that "the continent has yet to turn the tables on this pandemic. As long as the virus continues to circulate, further waves of pandemics are inevitable. ". Moeti then reiterated that Africa should "not only expand vaccinations, but also obtain greater and equal access to treatments for Covid-19 to save lives and effectively fight the pandemic". Only 10% on the continent are fully vaccinated and the official figures - which so far photograph 234,913 deaths and 10.5 million cases - are, according to experts,underestimated in the face of the difficulty of carrying out tests and tracking.
