Fear of coronavirus: riots at quarantine station in Ukraine

10:21 pm: Accompanied by riots, dozens of Ukrainians from the Chinese city of Wuhan arrived in a quarantine station in central Ukraine on Thursday evening. Several panes of the buses were thrown in while driving, as live pictures on Ukrainian television showed. The police had to clear a burning barricade for the convoy. Nine police officers and a civilian would have needed medical attention afterwards. The authorities initially did not provide any information about the degree of the injuries.

Hundreds of people had demonstrated against returning for fear of the new Sars-CoV-2 coronavirus. They were partially armed with iron bars. Stones flew. Several hundred police officers were deployed to calm the situation down. Local residents had blocked a connecting road to the quarantine station.

The quarantine station is located in a sanatorium of the Ukrainian National Guard in the village of Nowi Sanschary, almost 300 kilometers east of Kiev. The Chinese returnees arrived there in the evening. The area was completely cordoned off.

The Ukrainians had previously been flown out of Wuhan along with other nationals. 45 Ukrainians and 27 nationals from other countries were on board. All passengers must stay in the sanatorium for the next two weeks. No Sars-CoV-2 infection has been reported in Ukraine to date.

Minister of Health Sorjana Skalezkaja announced as a consequence of the riots that she would also go to the quarantine station for two weeks. "I hope that my personal behavior will help to calm the situation down and make a reconciliation. We all need that," she wrote on Facebook.