FRANCE TO SEND PLANE THIS WEEK
Paris, Jan. 28: France will send a first plane this week to evacuate its citizens from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of the novel coronavirus scare, in the first repatriations by a European country.
The plane will arrive in Wuhan on Thursday and “probably return to France on Friday, I’m not sure if it will be late on Friday or early on Saturday,” health minister Agnes Buzyn said at a press conference.
Deputy transport minister Jean-Baptiste Djebbari told CNews television that the flight will only take passengers “who do not have any symptoms” of illness.
A second flight carrying “people who may be carrying the virus” is planned but no date has yet been set, he said.
Paris, Jan. 28: France on Thursday will send a plane to start evacuating its citizens from Wuhan, the Chinese city at the centre of a coronavirus scare, in the first repatriations by a European country.
Some 500 to 1,000 French citizens are eligible for repatriation, Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told a press conference, though not all are keen to be pulled out from the zone as authorities said the virus has infected thousands and killed 106 so far. The first plane will likely return to France late Friday or early Saturday, Buzyn said. Those on it will be brought to a holding facility in Paris, where they will stay for 14 days — the estimated virus incubation period — to ensure they do not carry the virus and cannot pass it on to others.
Those displaying symptoms, which are similar to the flu and include a fever, will be hospitalised immediately. Deputy transport minister JeanBaptiste Djebbari told CNews television the flight would bring only passengers “who do not have any symptoms” of illness. A second plane to bring home “people who may be carrying the virus” is planned but no date has yet been set, he said. “Several planes will follow,” added Buzyn, so as not to mix potentially infected people with healthy ones on the same flight. The Chinese government has sealed off Wuhan and neighbouring cities, effectively trapping tens of millions of people, including thousands of foreigners, in a bid to contain the spread of the virus. France was the first European country to report imported cases of the new coronavirus, in three people who had recently been in China, while a half-dozen suspected infections are being analysed. Buzyn said several European countries had asked France to bring their nationals home.