PM lends support to Qantas to stop infected passengers from India

Scott Morrison says his government will work with Qantas to ensure no more COVID-positive passengers board flights to Australia. However, the Prime Minister acknowledged India was a difficult environment to work in after about half of the passengers on the first new repatriation flight to Darwin were barred from boarding. Morrison’s comments follow an Australian man who returned from India receiving a positive nasal swab test result for COVID-19 after landing in Darwin, despite trying to get the result from the testing lab, Commonwealth officials and Qantas before his departure. The airline has told the global diagnostic agency which is processing pre-departure test results that it must use accredited laboratories after the ABC revealed pathology lab CRL Diagnostics, had lost its accreditation from India’s laboratory board last month. Prabhjot Singh, who arrived in Darwin on Saturday, has since tested negative. “I got a knock on my door from the doctor saying your PCR test was positive, we have to put you in a special facility,” he said of his arrival in Darwin. “I was more stressed, I didn’t want to bring this to Australia and bring this to my family.” The first repatriation flight landed in Darwin on Saturday with 80 of its estimated 150 scheduled passengers. More than 70 were barred from flying after either testing positive during their mandatory three-day hotel stay in Delhi or being listed as close contacts of those cases.<br/>