Coronavirus consequences: Return flight from Wuhan landed with 102 Germans

The Bundeswehr jet with 102 Germans from the Coronavirus area in China has landed at Frankfurt am Main Airport.

For security reasons, the armed forces seven of the returnees were already isolated on the plane. According to SPIEGEL information, the passengers were symptom-free when departing from the crisis region, but complained of headaches or nausea during the flight.

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Although there are no concrete indications that the people are infected, the Luftwaffe placed the people in the so-called red area of ​​the plane after departure, which is separated from the rest by a few rows of seats in order to exclude the slightest risk for the other returnees.

After the first reports of the seven suspected cases on board, health minister Jens Spahn warned against over-interpretation. “For reasons of caution, each passenger with the smallest cough was seated separately as planned during the flight,” his spokesman told SPIEGEL. Upon arrival in Frankfurt, the staff of the local health department would again thoroughly check all passengers from Wuhan.

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Upon request from SPIEGEL, the federal police said they would be taken directly to a sports hall on the airport site that had been converted into an examination center. There it should do a quick test on that coronavirus give.

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Returnees who are not suspected of being coronavirus even after landing must first be quarantined for two weeks due to the 14-day incubation period. If infected people are among the returnees, these passengers go straight to a university hospital.

A total of 128 passengers were on the plane, said Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Health, Thomas Gebhart (CDU). There were 102 German citizens, the other 26 had family ties with them. Gebhart spoke of people from China, Romania and the USA.

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The Air Force’s Airbus A310 took off at 2:22 a.m.CET (9:22 a.m. local time) from the airport of Wuhan in central China, which was severely affected by the lung disease, as the operations commando reported. The landing in Frankfurt was delayed.

The plane was not allowed to stop in Moscow as originally planned. Instead, he was redirected to the Finnish capital Helsinki to fill up and exchange crew, said Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (CDU) in Bonn.

“We had the overflight permit and the prospect of landing permission was promised. Things have changed now,” she said. “What are the reasons now next to the official declaration of insufficient capacity at the airport in Moscow, we will certainly discuss with the Federal Foreign Office next week.”

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Relief prevailed before the departure in Wuhan: “To be happy at the gate,” reported a woman who did not want to be named, shortly before the start. The group had already gathered at the airport the night before and also spent the night there. “Everything was pretty exhausting so far.”

Rhineland-Palatinate sees itself well prepared for the quarantine of German citizens and family members. In the southern Palatinate barracks in Germersheim, “people who have been through a lot” would receive good and adequate care, said the Rhineland-Palatinate Health Minister Sabine Bätzing-Lichtenthäler (SPD) in Germersheim. A total of 128 rooms are available in a previously uninhabited building on the site. “Support in the red zone is provided by 27 volunteers from the German Red Cross,” said Michael Sieland from the German Red Cross.

The legal basis for the quarantine is the Infection Protection Act. According to the Ministry of Health, the federal government bears the costs for this; the returnees would only be charged for the cost of an economy flight, said State Secretary Gebhard.

“With the necessary serenity”

So far there have been seven confirmed cases of infection in Germany, all related to the Webasto company in Bavaria. Among them are six employees of the car supplier, one of which has infected his child. “They are all in very good health right now,” stressed Spahn.

That is why the population should “deal with the issue of coronavirus” with vigilance, but also with the necessary composure, “stressed Spahn with regard to the relatives of those infected in Bavaria, who were now partially avoided by their surroundings. “What worries me the most are the conspiracy theories of all kinds that are currently spreading on social media and that have only one goal: to spread uncertainty.”

Another German infected citizen was registered in Spain. The German on the Canary Island of La Gomera is the first known case in Spain. The Spanish government said that he was in contact with one of the patients infected in Germany.

In China, the epidemic on Saturday saw the highest increase in infections and deaths in one day. The Health Commission in Beijing reported an increase of almost 2,000 to 11,791. The number of deaths rose by 46 to 259. Outside of the People’s Republic, around 150 infections have so far been counted in two dozen countries.

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