A union representing FedEx pilots called on the delivery company Tuesday to suspend operations in Hong Kong after its members were subjected to quarantine facilities under “extremely difficult conditions.”
Hong Kong began testing all airline workers who were previously exempt from mandatory coronavirus tests this month, prompting United Airlines and American Airlines to suspend flights to the city. A FedEx pilot who had arrived from the United States and visited a popular restaurant tested positive on July 11.
The Air Line Pilots Association International said on Tuesday that three FedEx pilots who had tested positive for the coronavirus but were asymptomatic were “forced into mandated hospital facilities” in Hong Kong. Those who tested negative but had been in close contact with an infected person “were put into government camps under extremely difficult conditions.”
“Pilots who test positive for Covid-19 face compulsory admission and treatment in government-selected public hospitals, with as many as five patients to a room with one shared bathroom,” the union said in a statement.
“Not only do these situations pose unacceptable risks to our pilots’ safety and well-being, but they also create added stress and distraction for flight operations,” it added.
Hong Kong has had the same quarantining and hospitalization requirements for its own residents who test positive or were in close contact with a confirmed case.
The semiautonomous Chinese territory is fighting its biggest surge in coronavirus infections yet, with more than 100 new cases reported in each of the past seven days. Health officials believe that people who had been exempt from mandatory quarantine rules — including airline workers, seafarers and business executives — were behind the spike in cases.
Hong Kong previously allowed such exemptions to help boost the economy, but it planned to tighten testing and quarantine arrangements for air and sea crew members starting on Wednesday.
Reports about Hong Kong’s quarantine facilities have varied. Some camps have been compared to a “cozy university dorm” with brand-new Ikea furniture, but others have complained about unsanitary and moldy environments.
Separately, a 76-year-old woman who was initially hospitalized due to shortness of breath from heart failure died on Wednesday, a hospital spokesman said, bringing the death toll from the virus in Hong Kong to 24. She had been admitted to a hospital cubicle that had confirmed Covid-19 cases, and she was later identified as a close contact and subsequently tested positive.
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