During her flight from Chicago to Iceland, Michigan teacher Marisa Fotieo says her throat began to hurt. She promptly went to the bathroom and performed a rapid Covid test which showed she was positive with the virus. She then self-isolated in the bathroom for the remaining five hours of the flight.
“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 NBC News. “There’s 150 people on the flight, and my biggest fear was giving it to them,” she said.
In an interview with CNN, Fotieo said she was fully vaccinated and had received a booster shot. She was traveling with her brother and father to Switzerland, but had to stay in Iceland for ten days of isolation.
While in the bathroom in quarantine, she posted a short video from inside the cramped bathroom on TikTok. “POV you test positive for Covid while over the Atlantic Ocean. Shout out to Icelandair for my VIP quarantine quarters” was written over the video. Flight attendants provided her with food and drink.
Fotieo’s video went viral, and was viewed over 4 million times since she posted it on December 21, with most viewers questioning why she was allowed to board the flight in the first place. In the comments section, Fotieo explained that she received two negative PCR tests before boarding. “I never made it to my destination,” she updated fans over TikTok. “Quarantined in Iceland now.”
During her ten days of isolation, Fotieo has been posting multiple videos from inside her hotel quarantine in Reykjavik, Iceland.