El Al Announced on Thursday that it is suspending its flights Beijing, China, until March 25, 2020, El Al Spokesman Ran Rahab said, adding that Thursday’s Flight 096 from Beijing to Ben Gurion Airport will return to Israel as planned.
The announcement comes as China, with more than 7,711 cases confirmed, now has more cases of the coronavirus than it had of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) which ravaged mainland China and Hong Kong between November 2002 and July 2003. That outbreak resulted in 774 deaths in 17 countries.
38 more deaths from the coronavirus in China were announced on Thursday, bringing the death toll to 170. 37 of the deaths occurred in Hubei Province, and one in the southwestern province of Sichuan.
Tibet reported its first confirmed case of the coronavirus, which means that now every single province and occupied territory of China have been infected.
Thailand reported 14 cases of coronavirus infection; Japan 11; Hong Kong and Singapore 10; Taiwan 8; Australia, Malaysia and Macau 7 each; France 5; South Korea, Germany and the United Arab Emirates 4 each; Canada 3; Vietnam 2; and Nepal, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Finland 1 each.
According to the NY Times, coronavirus cases recorded in Taiwan, Germany, Vietnam and Japan involved patients who had not been to China.