"Great relief": After two weeks of isolation, around 120 returnees from Wuhan were allowed to leave the barracks in Germersheim. None of them had the corona virus.

 

After around two weeks, the quarantine for 120 returnees from China ends in a Bundeswehr German Army barracks in the town of Germersheim. The results of further tests for the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV or SARS-CoV-2) are negative, informed a spokesman for the Air Force on Sunday morning.

German Federal Minister of Health Mr Jens Spahn was pleased that the returnees from the particularly affected Chinese city of Wuhan "can safely return to their families". Quarantine is not an easy situation. "But it was necessary to protect the returnees themselves, their environment and the entire population," stressed Spahn. "In this way, two infected people were discovered right at the beginning and treated separately clinically." These two people had already been released from the Frankfurt University Hospital on Friday.

The German Federal Ministry of Health said on Twitter: "This shows once again that we can only get this epidemic under control if we react carefully but appropriately."

More than 120 German citizens and family members had flown from the Chinese metropolis of Wuhan to Frankfurt am Main and were taken to the barracks in Germersheim on February 1.

The quarantine duration of fourteen days corresponds to the maximum incubation period, i.e. the time between infection and the first symptoms of the lung disease Covid-19, which is triggered by the new pathogen from the family of coronaviruses. In addition to the returnees, twenty-two helpers from the German Red Cross have also spent the past few days in the barracks. In view of the lack of infection, the district administration in Germersheim commented: "It is a great relief."

A patient leaves Munich clinic

In the meantime, more coronavirus patients were discharged from the hospital in Southern Germany in Bavaria during the weekend. A spokeswoman for the ministry stated that the Robert Koch Institute's discharge criteria had been met.

The first of a total of fourteen patients registered in the Bavaria was discharged from a Munich clinic last Thursday. The person had been completely healthy and no longer contagious.

All fourteen infections with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Bavaria are related to the automotive supplier Webasto from Stockdorf. A Chinese colleague had introduced the pathogen during a business trip in January. The headquarters was closed for two weeks due to the infections and had reopened last Wednesday.