A video has emerged on social media showing a suspected coronavirus victim in China screaming as she is placed inside a metal container and taken away to quarantine.
The footage shows the woman hugging her partner on the street before they are led by men in pink hazmat suits into the box, which is on the back of a pick-up truck. Her screams can then be heard after the door is closed.
It was confirmed as genuine by Global Times, a Chinese state media outfit linked to the People's Daily. It interviewed a Communist Party official in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, where it said the quarantined woman had travelled after visiting Wuhan in January.
In a video posted to Twitter, Global Times said the unnamed woman had contacted authorities to inform them of her recent travel, and that "she agreed on the phone to be quarantined in a designated quarantine area”.
The official, named only as Ms You, conceded that the woman had had “an emotional outburst” on her way to quarantine.
When asked about the choice of transport by the media outlet, Ms You said that an “iron shed” had been set up so that “suspected patients don’t have to sit in the rain”.
The woman was not forced into the box even though police were present as a precaution, both Global Times and Ms You insisted.
Similar videos have surfaced since coronavirus was first identified in China in December last year, with authorities still struggling to contain the disease.
The virus has killed more than 1,350 people so far, greatly exceeding the 774 deaths caused by Sars in the early 2000s.
In Hubei province, 242 people died from the virus on Wednesday, signalling the sharpest spike in the death toll since the virus took hold.
Beijing has sacked two top provincial officials.
Elsewhere, Japan confirmed its first coronavirus death on Thursday and EU health officials gathered in Brussels to discuss how the spread of the virus in Europe can be stemmed.
