Taiwan’s EVA Airways fired a pilot guilty of the country’s first local coronavirus transmission in eight months.
The airline said the unidentified pilot, a New Zealander, was responsible for the infection of a local woman, the first local case in 253 days, according to Yahoo! News. The company said in a statement that the pilot violated public safety rules and caused “serious damage to the company’s reputation and image”.
The man allegedly worked without a mask, although he was reminded of the masking rule by a Taiwanese colleague, who later tested positive, the airline said. The pilot, who was reportedly coughing during a flight to the United States on December 12, was fined the equivalent of $ 10,600 for not being “honestly” accountable for his activities and contacts, according to Yahoo !.
Of 173 people who made contact with the infected woman, 170 were negative, according to Taiwan’s Health Minister Chen Shih-chung. The pilot is believed to have visited two department stores, among other locations, but had previously said that he could not remember where he had been and that he had not told authorities that he had made contact with the local infected woman, the media reported. .
Existing protocols require that any pilot arriving on the island be quarantined for three days per trip abroad, a requirement that will be reinforced as a result of the outbreak.
Taiwan, which closed its borders and implemented blockade measures at the beginning of the pandemic, recorded only 776 cases of the virus and seven deaths. All cases of the virus between April and December involved a handful of Taiwanese citizens returning home and foreign citizens.