Woman With Coronavirus Symptoms Brags About Sneaking Past Airport Health Check

Image: PHOTO: The coronavirus outbreak's origin is traced to Wuhan, China. (photo via Gilnature/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Image: PHOTO: The coronavirus outbreak's origin is traced to Wuhan, China. (photo via Gilnature/iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Rich Thomaselli
by Rich Thomaselli
Last updated: 12:15 AM ET, Thu January 30, 2020

You've heard of dine-and-dash, the illegal practice of eating a meal at a restaurant and then sneaking out without paying?

How about dash-and-dine?

And this could have potentially had more repercussions than just money.

A woman from China's Wuhan Province-the epicenter of the coronavirus that has killed more than 20 people-bragged on social media that despite showing symptoms of the virus she was able to bring her fever down enough to get past security health checks at the airport.

And it was all to have a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Lyon, France.

The woman detailed her journey to Lyon on the social media site WeChat, China's biggest messaging app with more than 1 billion monthly users.

"Finally I can have a good meal, I feel like I've been starving for two days," she wrote. "When you are in a gourmet city, of course you have to eat Michelin (rated food)."

The woman openly admitted she had a fever and a cough, and feared that she might have the virus. So she began pounding meds to bring her fever down enough to have passed the thermal screening at the airport.

"Just before I left, I had a low fever and cough. I was scared to death and rushed to eat (fever-reducing) medicine," she wrote, according to the BBC. "I kept on checking my temperature. Luckily I managed to get it down and my exit was smooth."

She later posted pictures showing herself dining at what she claimed was a Michelin-starred restaurant in Lyon. But she was roundly criticized by fellow social media members for endangering the lives of hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

Alas, the woman was located by the Chinese Embassy in Paris, which demanded she go through a medical check. She was found not to have the coronavirus.


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Rich Thomaselli

Rich Thomaselli

Associate Writer

Editor Associate Writer true 9281 14744 Rich Thomaselli has written for TravelPulse since 2014 and has been a professional journalist for nearly 40 years. His work has appeared in USA Today, the New York Times and New York Yankees publications. He is an 11-time writ

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