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Plane with returnees from South Africa at Amsterdam Airport (on Saturday)
Photo: SEM VAN DER WAL / AFP
The Dutch border police arrested a couple after escaping from a quarantine hotel.
The authorities said that the two were caught on Sunday in a plane that was supposed to take off for Spain.
The couple had previously fled from a hotel in which travelers from South Africa who tested positive for Corona are staying, some of whom were also found to have the new Omicron variant.
The police handed them over to the health authorities.
The couple were then re-quarantined.
On Sunday evening, the authorities initiated proceedings for "endangering public security".
The couple is a 30-year-old Spaniard and a 28-year-old Portuguese, said a police spokesman for the AFP news agency.
One of the two people tested positive for the virus, said a spokeswoman for the health authority.
The other person had tested negative, but was still quarantined.
The incident occurred after the Dutch authorities announced that 13 of 61 travelers who arrived at Schiphol Airport on two planes from South Africa on Friday were infected with the new variant of Omikron.
Almost all Covid-positive passengers are currently in a quarantine hotel.
However, a handful were allowed to go home in quarantine.
Passengers who tested negative were also placed in quarantine at home.
A few hours before the escape, the Dutch Minister of Health Hugo de Jonge had declared that the authorities in the Netherlands would ensure that the quarantine regulations were observed.
"We'll check whether they adhere to these rules," said de Jonge.
Police and security forces kept watch at the quarantine hotel, said a spokeswoman for the authorities.
"The security precautions have a reason."
Hours of waiting after landing in Amsterdam
The events in the Netherlands had made headlines in advance.
According to reports from passengers on Saturday night, disturbing scenes had taken place at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
The occupants of the two machines that landed from South Africa were intercepted and tested because of the new Corona variant.
After hours it was clear that 61 of around 600 passengers are corona-positive.
On Sunday it was announced that at least 13 of them were infected with the new Omikron variant.
According to reports from fellow travelers, it took hours to even start testing.
The people on the plane were "taken from the tarmac to an isolated room where we waited four hours before being tested," said passenger Paula Zimmerman of the AFP news agency.
"Everyone on the plane was in there," he said, and he said little attention was paid to the rules of distance.
After waiting for hours, she finally received a negative result, but now has to spend five days in quarantine at home, said Zimmerman, who documented her night in videos on Twitter.
More and more suspected cases in Germany
So far, three Omikron cases have been reported in Germany.
The Hessian Ministry of Social Affairs confirmed on Sunday after a complete sequencing that a suspected case is an Omicron infection.
The fully vaccinated traveler returned from South Africa via Frankfurt Airport a week ago.
Bavaria also reported two highly suspected cases.
The two passengers who entered via Munich Airport on Wednesday are in domestic isolation after a positive PCR test, as the Bavarian Ministry of Health announced on Saturday evening.
A full genome sequencing should provide certainty whether it is the omicron variant.
In Essen and Düsseldorf there are "first suspected cases that are now being checked using sequencing," said a spokesman for the North Rhine-Westphalian Ministry of Health of the "Rheinische Post".
jok / AFP
