COVID-Infected Man Cross-Dressed As Wife To Board Flight In Indonesia, Skirt Restrictions

A COVID-infected man has been sent back to quarantine and faces arrest for attempting to evade COVID protocols after posing as his wife in her niqab and boarding a Citilink domestic flight from Jakarta to Ternate, authorities announced on Monday.

The accused impostor, identified by his initials, D.W., breached a security checkpoint at Jakarta’s Halim Perdanausuma International Airport over the weekend by wearing his wife’s full-face veil, which only has an opening for the eyes, according to Forbes.

He would use her identification and negative PCR test to board the Citilink flight without any issues. D.W., however, got caught mid-flight after he entered the aircraft lavatory in women’s clothing yet exited in men’s attire.

A flight attendant took notice of the incident and quickly alerted authorities on the ground. An on-site health officer tested the passenger for coronavirus and the PCR test delivered a positive result, the CNN reported.

The Ternate City COVID-19 Handling Task Force team was then called to evacuate the man while in their personal protective equipment. They took him in an ambulance to his house in Ternate City to self-isolate, where he will be supervised by Task Force officers, according to task force operational head Muhammad Arif Gani.

Local police are now intending to prosecute D.W. once he fully recovers from the virus.

The incident comes as Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world, overtakes India as Asia’s hotspot for new COVID infections with many of the recent cases confirmed to be the highly transmissible Delta variant.

With only 6% of more than 270 million people being fully vaccinated, Indonesia has seen a surge in new infections and deaths in recent weeks, the New York Daily Post noted. Nearly 1,300 fatalities were reported overnight on Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins University’s Coronavirus Resource Center.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's “avoid travel” advisory still stands after it deemed the Asian country under a Level 4 travel health notice following a “very high” level of COVID-19.

A health survey released in early July has also unveiled that close to half of the people tested in Jakarta had COVID antibodies. Authorities say this most likely means that the outbreak in the capital may have been much bigger than reported.