Woman self-isolates in airplane bathroom for 4 hours after testing positive mid-flight



A schoolteacher from Michigan recently went to great lengths to keep from spreading COVID-19 — voluntarily spending four hours cramped inside an airplane bathroom after testing positive for the pathogen on her way to Iceland.

Marisa Fotieo said she was halfway through her Icelandair flight from Chicago to Reykjavik last week when she felt her throat start to hurt. So she pulled out a rapid testing kit that she had brought from him and diagnosed herself.

"I just took my rapid test and I brought it into the bathroom, and within what felt like two seconds there were two lines (indicating a positive test)," Fotieo told "Today" after a post on TikTok documenting the experience went viral.

The video, which has been viewed more than 3 million times, shows the vaccinated schoolteacher hunkered down in the tiny airplane bathroom while traveling 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean.

@marisaefotieo

Shout out to @Icelandair for my VIP quarantine quarters.. #luxuryliving #imsolucky #covid #vaccinated #fyp #viralvideotiktok #quarantine

Upon receiving her diagnosis, Fotieo, who works as a preschool teacher in Chicago, apparently opted to remain in the plane's bathroom stall for the remainder of the flight.

"There [were] 150 people on the flight, and my biggest fear was giving it to them," she told "Today."

In her TikTok post's caption, Fotieo jokingly wrote, "Shout out to @Icelandair for my VIP quarantine quarters," with hashtags #luxuryliving and #imsolucky.

Thankfully, the teacher said a kind flight attendant named Ragnhildur "Rocky" Eiríksdóttir provided her with care during the flight, bringing her snacks and beverages and periodically checking in on her to make sure she was alright.

That same flight attendant even sent gifts to Fotieo upon her arrival in Reykjavik, where Fotieo checked into a Red Cross hotel to continue her quarantine.

"She bought me flowers and a little Christmas tree with lights so I could hang it," she recalled. "It was so heartfelt, and she’s just an angel."

Teacher Isolates in Restroom After Positive Test Mid-Flight www.youtube.com

Fotieo was reportedly traveling with relatives over Christmas break when her trip was drastically altered.

Her rearranged travel plans came as the rise of the Omicron variant created chaos for travelers across the globe. As more and more airline workers tested positive for the virus over the holidays, major airlines in the U.S. and elsewhere abruptly canceled thousands of flights.

Dr. Fauci says there's no need to cancel Christmas, calls claims that he said otherwise 'nonsense.' But he told the BBC his warnings were a 'cancel Christmas message.'



Dr. Anthony Fauci recently revealed to the Washington Post that he and his wife will be celebrating Christmas alone because of the pandemic. After sharing that this kids would not be making the trek home for the big day, the doctor offered a warning about Christmas celebrations.

He said, the Post reported, that holiday revelries could cause a coronavirus spread that is worse than what we saw at Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans ignored suggestions to stay home and avoid gatherings.

Fauci said the country cannot afford to "run away from the data" even though it will be painful to miss time with family.

Following the publication of the interview, reports came out that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief was calling for Americans to cancel Christmas.

But Fauci told Fox News host Bill Hemmer on Thursday that such claims are "nonsense."

"I've heard and seen tweets saying, 'Fauci says cancel Christmas,'" he stated. "Nonsense. I've never said that."

However, he said something else to the BBC.

After sharing with BBC's "Newsnight" that he believed people should curtail travel and keep gatherings and dinners as small as possible, the show's hosts asked if he was pulling a Grinch.

"It is a cancel Christmas message in effect?" they asked.

Fauci replied, "Yes, in some respects it is, unfortunately."

Mixed messages

A couple of days later, Fauci said there is no need to cancel Christmas. The doctor said his statements were simply intended to be a warning that would urge folks to be careful when it comes to gatherings.

"I'm not saying that everyone should cancel the family gathering, I'm saying that people will need to make individual choices," Fauci said.

"When you're talking about having a congregate setting for dinner — not cancel the family aspect — but you have some Christmas dinners people bring friends and others in who travel from different parts of the country. You could have 15, 20 people at a dinner. That's really somewhat risky," he continued. "You can do a modified version of that."

“You don't have to cancel things — you can still spend time with your family," Fauci said later. "I'm just asking people to be careful when it comes to travel that may not be necessary, travel that you can avoid. And when you get together, try to make some limitation to it."

Support for New York shutdowns

Hemmer pressed Fauci about New York's recent efforts to battle COVID-19, which the doctor has praised.

Specifically, the host pointed out that restaurants and bars — according to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo's own data — have been responsible for less than 1.5% of viral spread in recent months, yet the governor ordered indoor dining to be closed, and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio threatened that a full-blown lockdown is a possibility.

"You've got all these people out of work and all these restaurants closed. I mean, do you really think that New York has made the best decision?" Hemmer asked.

Fauci answered that though he does support closures that would help slow transmission of the virus, he does think there needs to be relief for businesses that are impacted.

Well, you know, what we really need to do is make sure when we say limit restaurant capacity or close restaurants or close the bars, that has to be accompanied by relief, financial relief for the restaurant owners and the bar owners. Because certainly if you do that, if you shut down those establishments, you're going to diminish the transmissibility of infection. But you can't do it in a vacuum. You've got to help those people out. They've got to get some relief.

Otherwise, they may not be able to recover from the fact that you're asking them to shut down. You've got to keep those two things together. You can't just say shut down and walk away.

He added that he has been vocal about telling Congress, "We can't ask people to participate in a public health measure that unquestionably is damaging to their financial solvency without coming in and trying to help them."