Third charter plane heads to Wuhan to evacuate more Koreans

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday it has confirmed a Chinese woman, 30, as the 28th patient of the new coronavirus.

She is an acquaintance of the third confirmed patient, a 54-year-old Korean man who worked at the Korean quarter of clothing stores called “The Place” as part of an international fashion center in Wuhan. The latest patient is being treated at Myongji Hospital in Goyang, north of Seoul, where the third patient has also been receiving treatment.

There are 24 patients currently in quarantine for treatment as four of the 28 confirmed cases have left the hospital fully recovered. The fourth recovered case was patient No. 11, who responded negatively for two consecutive tests and was discharged on Monday.

As the numbers of confirmed and fully recovered patients have been increasing, the government plans to send the third chartered flight on Tuesday evening to Wuhan, China, for evacuation.

Unlike the first two flights, the third flight will include the Chinese relatives of the Korean residents left in the epicenter of the coronavirus.

Upon arrival at the airport, the evacuees will be tested and quarantined at the Korea Defense Language Institute in Icheon, Gyeonggi Province, for 14 days.

So far, 2,736 people have shown negative responses to the test, and 865 are being tested.

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