[ad_1]
Sixteen French retirees were still stranded in Costa Rica on Friday because of Covid-19, six of them hospitalized and two in serious condition. The president of the association that organized the trip called on the French authorities to help a emergency repatriation.
“We are guilty, we are guilty of leaving. There, I say it clearly.” Antoine Stefanelli is one of sixteen French tourists stranded in Costa Rica since January 25, after testing positive for Covid-19.
The group, made up of 22 retirees from La Poste and the Orange group aged “60 to 77”, had left the Lorraine region (East of France) on January 16 for a ten-day trip to the small country of America. central.
In an interview with BFM TV on Friday, Antoine Stefanelli said he was “at the end of his rope”, having “sent a distress message to the embassy” to obtain medication for his wife and having received a simple “e-mail address ” in return.
“We are retirees,” he added. We saved for a year to pay for a good trip. It was clear that the agency would maintain the trip. The trip was maintained. If you don’t want to lose everything, you have to come “.
Six people are hospitalized, including two in serious condition, according to the president of the association which organized the trip and which is now calling for help from the French authorities.
Initially, six travelers and then a total of twenty tested positive after their scheduled January 27 departure was postponed due to stricter health standards for entry into the Netherlands, through which they had to transit.
Only two members of the group were able to leave first, followed by four others, via Madrid.
Seven of the tourists were hospitalized, the embassy said. Today there are six of them, plus the group’s Costa Rican guide Roberto, one of the group’s members, Guy Poirot, said.
Three are in intensive care at San Juan de Dios hospital in the Costa Rican capital, two of whom are in “very serious” condition, he said.
The other three, including Poirot, saw their health improve and were admitted to an establishment for patients with milder symptoms. “I was told it would take me another 7 to 8 days to test negative,” a sine qua non for returning to France, Poirot said.
For the remaining ten travelers who have tested positive but did not suffer from severe symptoms, they are quarantined in hotels at their expense: the $ 2,000 (1,650 euros) for accommodation, covered by insurance required by Costa Rica to enter the country, have now been exceeded.
Financial loss
In order to encourage the resumption of tourism activity, Costa Rica has not required visitors to take a negative PCR test since October, but they must take out insurance covering medical and accommodation costs in the event of contagion.
“The trip had been planned for more than a year” and the retirees would have lost “between 60 and 70%” of the price of the stay paid to the Couleurs du Monde travel agency if they had given up on going, Poirot explained .
“The Moselle (where travelers come from) is one of the most affected regions (by Covid-19): there is no need to travel to find yourself in this situation”, explained the president of the ‘Association.
On social networks, many Internet users wonder about the “irresponsibility” of tourists, who left in the middle of the pandemic. It could not be determined whether they were infected in the country or whether any of them already carried the virus before their trip.
After registering just over 1,000 daily cases of Covid-19 in early January, Costa Rica has registered between 400 and 500 since the second week of February.
(with press wires)
Source link
