Swiss return from coronavirus quarantine in France
The quarantine of five Swiss nationals and three Chinese relatives who had been repatriated from Wuhan to France ended on Saturday evening as planned. None of them contracted the coronavirus.
Six of those quarantined – four Swiss nationals and two Chinese – returned safely to Switzerland on Sunday in a bus chartered by the Swiss foreign affairs department. The two others declined the offer of Swiss authorities and chose to return on their own.
The eight people had been repatriated from Wuhan, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, by the French authorities and quarantined on February 2 in Aix-en-Provence. During their stay in France, they were accompanied by staff of the Swiss consulate in Marseille and were able to communicate with their relatives without any problems, according to a spokesperson from the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.
The news comes as the first death in Europe from the virus was recorded over the weekend in France and the total number infected globally reached nearly 70,000.
On Friday, the Federal Office of Public Health provided an update on the situation in Switzerland indicating that around 250 people have been tested so far for the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19, in Switzerland. But none of the samplesExternal link have tested positive.
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Swiss health officials give coronavirus quarantine update
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