Despite being in good health and showing no symptoms of Coronavirus, a Lebanese student who arrived from China is being held in quarantine at the Rafik el-Hariri state-run hospital.
The health minister Hamad Hassan had tweeted that “all the reports claiming that a Lebanese student has been infected with the coronavirus are baseless,” saying that “his family is near him and he is enjoying all the necessary care and attention.”
LBC had earlier reported that “a quarantined ambulance that was spotted passing through the al-Masnaa border’s crossing today was carrying a Lebanese citizen to the Rafik Hariri state-run hospital in Beirut.”
“The Lebanese citizen was in China with a group of Iranian and Syrian friends and he asked to be evacuated with them aboard a plane belonging to the Iranian airlines and the Iranian embassy approved the request,” LBCI said.
“The plane arrived in Tehran this morning before flying to Damascus airport, after which the Syrian Red Crescent coordinated with the relevant authorities in Lebanon and the Lebanese citizen was transported to the al-Masnaa crossing,” they explained.
However, even though the student shows no signs of being infected with the virus, he will have to be held in the facility for 2 weeks as a precaution because of the virus’s incubation period.
The coronavirus has been the virus that made enormous headlines during the beginning of 2020 as it has now reportedly infected over 24,000 people in China.
It had begun to reach many countries from across the world over the course of January, most notably Europe, the United States, and Australia.
Because of this, the World Health Organization (WHO) had announced an international health emergency last week. Several governments, as a result, have imposed travel restrictions and major airlines suspended flights to and from China.
However, with all this panic, there are no reported cases of the Coronavirus in Lebanon.