Tamil Nadu: Chinese tourist tests nCoV negative, opts to return home

MADURAI: A 30-year-old tourist from China opted to return to his country after health officials in Ramanathapuram asked him to either remain under isolation for monitoring for two weeks or leave India due to the corona outbreak in China.
His visit created a flutter when he arrived in Rameswaram on Saturday morning. In the evening, he was escorted by health officials to the Madurai international airport, from where he flew to Chennai and is expected to fly to China at the earliest. The tourist was identified as Chengzu, 30, of Anhui, 480km from Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak.
“He flew to Kolkata on a tourist visa on January 28. After visiting a few places there he came to Rameswaram on Saturday morning,” Ramanathapuram collector K Veera Raghava Rao told TOI.
He checked in at MCM Towers in Rameswaram. On finding that he had come from China, the staff alerted police. “Public health and revenue officials and police immediately went to the hotel. A team of doctors confirmed that he did not have symptoms of nCoV,” the collector said.
Chengzu was annoyed by the inquiries made by government officials and police.
Meanwhile, the health officials pacified the hotel staff, other tourists and local people, saying there is no need to panic as he is not infected.
Health officials faced difficulty in communicating with him as he was not fluent in English. The officials then used an online translator application.
Since he has already been in India for two weeks, the officials gave him an option to be under quarantine for two more weeks or return home. Though he was upset that he could not visit a few more places in Tamil Nadu, he said he preferred to return to China.
He was escorted by a team of health department personnel and a policeman in a separate vehicle from Rameswaram to the Madurai airport at 2 pm, where he was screened before he was flown to Chennai at 6pm.