Eight people who arrived from Bangladesh test positive for COVID-19

Eight people who arrived from Bangladesh in the same airplane tested positive for COVID-19. It is worrisome that additional cases are likely to arise among the passengers who were on the same airplane.

According to the disease control authorities on Friday, one South Korean and seven Bangladeshis who arrived at Incheon International Airport from Dhaka, the country’s capital, via Korean Air on Thursday received positive COVID-19 test results after each of them dispersed across South Korea, including Jeju Island.

Three foreign students among them, in particular, traveled from Incheon International Airport to Gimpo International Airport, then to Jeju Island with a broad scope of contact. COVID-19 cases from the same airplane have been also identified in Incheon, Gyeonggi Province, and North Jeolla Province. There are likely to be more cases among the passengers on the plane with 284 seats as some of them have not been tested yet.

The points of transmission for the eight confirmed cases are unclear at the moment. The authorities believe that they might have been infected in Bangladesh, rather than in the airplane. The total number of cases in Bangladesh stood at 94,481 as of Thursday.


leper@donga.com