Heath minister Hugo de Jonge has insisted the correct procedures were followed for testing and quarantining passengers who arrived from South Africa last week.

More than 600 passengers were kept back at Schiphol for PCR tests on Friday, hours after the Dutch government tightened restrictions in response to the discovery of the Omicron variant of coronavirus.

Among them was New York Times journalist Stephanie Nolen, who was scathing about the Dutch authorities’ handling of the situation. Passengers sat for hours on the plane on the tarmac, before being taken to an unventilated room where many people were not wearing masks.

I’m frustrated about this extra time away from my family, and the more I think about it, angry at the Dutch. Absolutely, quarantine and test us. But first get us off the plane, allow us to isolate from each other, give out N95s and make people too dumb to mask, put them on.

— Stephanie Nolen (@snolen) November 28, 2021

Passengers who tested positive were required to quarantine, but those with addresses in the Netherlands could go home if they said nobody else was living there. A couple who were taken to a hotel to quarantine walked out the next day and tried to board a flight to Spain.

Very high risk

South Africa and seven other countries in the region were placed on the list of very high-risk countries on Friday afternoon, meaning travellers must take a PCR test before boarding and are offered a second test when they land. The government is considering making the test on arrival mandatory.

De Jonge said home quarantining would continue for people who were able to do so, with follow-up checks to make sure they were complying. Anyone caught breaking quarantine after arriving from a very high-risk country faces a €339 fine.

‘Anyone who can go home can quarantine there safely,’ he said. ‘There will be phone calls and checks on the doorstep.’

The minister said it was regrettable that a Spanish-Portuguese couple had broken quarantine, but they could not be forced to stay in the hotel where tourists were accommodated.

Hotel ‘not prison’

‘There was security, but a hotel is not a prison,’ he said. ‘They have been arrested and quarantined in a specially designated hospital.’ The couple are due to appear in court later on Tuesday.

Although 14 people tested at Schiphol were infected with the Omicron variant, De Jonge said it had not yet been found in the weekly sampling of positive tests in the country.

‘That leads us to believe that it is not present in large numbers. But we need to investigate that. We are concerned about this variant, because it appears to be more infectious.’