The United States government is organizing a charter flight scheduled for Sunday to evacuate around 230 people from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the deadly new coronavirus initiated. The evacuation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as the city is on lock-down and all public transportation halted. A person familiar with the evacuation plan told The New York Times that the flight is expected to head to America’s West Coast. The U.S. government was reportedly given special permission to defy the lock-down by China’s foreign ministry following intense negotiations. A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Beijing confirmed last week that all U.S. government employees and family members had been ordered to leave the city.
