Coronavirus: Australia, Vietnam quarantine Wuhan evacuees, but Cambodia’s PM wants to visit Chinese city
- Canberra has sent hundreds of its citizens to remote Christmas Island, while Hanoi has sent nearly 1,000 Vietnamese returnees into military quarantine
- Cambodian leader Hun Sen, however, has said he will visit the Chinese city to give ‘moral support’ to the Cambodians he refused to repatriate
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The news came as Vietnam assigned nearly 1,000 Vietnamese nationals returning from China to military quarantine and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen vowed to visit Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak.
Australia, however, has asked for permission for a second evacuation flight out of the Chinese city, which has been in lockdown. There were 600 Australians registered in Hubei last week.
Elsewhere, an evacuation flight chartered by Air New Zealand was expected to leave Wuhan late on Tuesday, with 70 New Zealanders and 50 Australian citizens and permanent residents on board. The Australians will be transferred from Auckland to Christmas Island.
The coronavirus has killed 425 people in China, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.
The total number of infections worldwide reached at least 20,600 on Tuesday.
In Vietnam, 950 people will be isolated at two military camps outside Hanoi for at least 14 days, reported the official Voice of Vietnam Radio.
The report did not say when they would return to Vietnam, but said they would arrive at Noi Bai Airport in Hanoi and Van Don Airport in Quang Ninh province.
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“During the time of quarantine, anyone of them showing symptoms of fever will be transferred to a hospital for treatment,” the report cited Nguyen Viet Thang, Hanoi’s chief military doctor, as saying.
The government said last week that cross-border trade between Vietnam and China was “not encouraged” and on Sunday announced it would ban all flights to and from China over coronavirus concerns.
Vietnam confirmed an additional case of the new coronavirus on Tuesday, the health ministry said, bringing the country’s total to nine cases.
Also on Tuesday, a plane carrying 138 Thais from Wuhan arrived at U-Tapao airport in the eastern Rayong province, all of whom were healthy, public health minister Anutin Charnvirakul said ahead of its arrival. They will be quarantined for 14 days in a navy resort near the Thai navy base in Sattahip, Chonburi, east of Bangkok.
Hun Sen, a close ally of China, said he would fly to the city on Wednesday from South Korea, where he is attending a summit, and that he had informed Chinese authorities of his trip.
He said in a post on his Facebook page he would visit the students to “to show them warmth and to make sure they are not scared of the new type of infectious coronavirus”.
Cambodia, which has a large community of expatriate Chinese people, reported its single case of the virus last week, a Chinese man who came with his family from Wuhan to the coastal city of Sihanoukville last month.
Last week, Hun Sen said the coronavirus was under control in Cambodia despite public fears.
He also said Cambodia would allow flights from China and would not evacuate Cambodian students and diplomats, sparking public criticism that he was not doing enough to help them.
