Hysteria over coronavirus sparks violent protests in Ukraine

[Dennis Donovan]

https://abcnews.go.com/International/hysteria-coronavirus-sparks-violent-protests-ukraine/story?id=69124337

Protesters smashed the windows of buses carrying people evacuated from China

By Patrick Reevell

February 21, 2020, 10:39 AM

Hysteria over the novel coronavirus epidemic has sparked violent protests in Ukraine, fueled by panic and disinformation around the outbreak -- even though the country has no confirmed cases of the virus.

Protests and violent clashes with police broke out in several places Thursday, as Ukraine's authorities blamed the disorder on the spread of misinformation on social media and suggested it may have been part of a deliberate campaign targeting the country.

The trouble began as a plane carrying evacuees from China landed in Ukraine on Thursday. In a village in central Ukraine, where the evacuees were due to be taken to a health spa to be quarantined, local people began attacking police and tried to blockade the convoy carrying the evacuees.

Residents at the village of Novi Sanzhary set alight tires and barricaded the road to the spa, before attacking the convoy with the evacuees onboard. Windows on some of the buses were smashed.

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Link to tweet

ABC News ✔ @ABC

Turbulent scenes as buses carrying evacuees from China’s coronavirus-stricken city of Wuhan are attacked by protesters on their way to quarantine in Ukraine. https://abcn.ws/2SMmDuj

Embedded video

12:31 PM - Feb 21, 2020

On edit: that tweet was written poorly - it gave the impression the evacuees were not yet in Ukraine - this took place IN Ukraine.

[secondwind]

1. OMG, what a mess! Who is in charge of this? Oh, I forget.. The Orange Menace....

November can't get here fast enough.......

[Phoenix61]

2. If you're worried people on a bus are contagious

smashing the windows seems like a particularly bad idea.

[Coventina]

3. Humans are stupid. n/t

[onenote]

4. Why are they worried. It will be gone in April

when the mean temperature in Ukraine gets to a toasty 49 degrees.

Or at least that's what the stable genius says.

[Crunchy Frog]

5. That's a really good way to keep a potential pathogen contained.