Covid-19: Tale of Kenyan couple who tested negative in US, positive in France
A Kenyan couple has been forced to head into quarantine in France after their second Covid-19 test results turned out positive despite testing negative in the US days before they commenced their travel to Kenya.
The couple who only identified themselves as Brian and Mary said they were traveling back home to attend their sister’s funeral but were detained in Paris after they tested positive for the virus.
Narrating their ordeal to Diaspora Messenger, a blog site that reports on Kenyans in the Diaspora, they said trouble started after French officials told them that by the time they land in Kenya their clearance certificate will not be viable as the mandatory 14 days would have lapsed.
They said their journey started well in Atlanta Georgia, where they boarded their flight destined for the French capital on Tuesday August 11 2020.
They arrived in Paris on Wednesday, August 12 on time and they proceeded to the gate for the connecting flight to Nairobi with Air France.
“When we got to the gate,they told us that the negative Covid-19 results which we had received on Monday August 10, was done too early because the Kenyan Government had passed a directive that one can only enter the country if the test is done within 72 hours which meant that since we were arriving on Thursday the 13th at 8.00 pm Kenyan time, it will be too late and the certificate will have expired,” they said.
The couple was forced to take another Covid-19 test in Paris, with the results for this test returning positive for both.
As a result, they were briefly held at the police station but were later released and given temporary 14 days’ French visas to quarantine in a hotel before they are cleared to proceed with their journey to Kenya.
The sad part, they said, is the fact that they not only missed their sister’s burial but also ended up spending a lot of money that was not included in their budget.