Amid the global outbreak of coronavirus, special flights of the Indian Air Force and Air India arrived in Delhi on Thursday morning after evacuating Indians and foreigners from coronavirus-hit Wuhan and quarantined cruise ship Diamond Princess off coast Japan.
The Indian Air Force C17 Globemaster landed in virus-hit Wuhan on Wednesday carrying 15 tonnes of medical aid to help China with the epidemic and on its return evacuated 76 Indians and 36 foreign nationals (of countries Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, Maldives, the US, South Africa and Madagascar) from the Chinese city and landed here in Delhi early Thursday morning.
In another development, an Air India flight from Tokyo landed in Delhi in the wee hours of Thursday, carrying 119 Indian nationals and five foreign nationals from Sri Lanka, Nepal, South Africa and Peru. The evacuated people had been quarantined aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship off the coast of Japan because of the outbreak of coronavirus onboard the cruise. Both of these developments were tweeted by Union Minister of External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar.
As on Thursday, the death toll from the virus in mainland China reached 2,744, with 29 deaths being reported today. Though this tally is the lowest number of daily deaths reported from China, where the virus broke out, since January, gives some relief to the Chinese authorities. In the United States, public health officials has warned the citizens to be prepared for more cases of the virus.
In the meantime, social media giant Facebook on Wednesday revealed that it would be banning the ads those make false claims about products being tied to the coronavirus, like ads for masks which are claimed to 100% prevent the speed of the coronavirus.
