Under police escort, the vehicles transported more than 70 people who had flown from China to a medical facility for quarantine in Novi Sanzhary in Ukraine’s central Poltava region.

An angry mob blocked off the road and threw stones at the vehicles while clashing with police.

Fears were kindled after the circulation of a fake email claiming to be from Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, which stated some of the evacuees had contracted the virus, according to the BBC. Ukraine’s health ministry says none of the passengers are sick.

Local legislators voiced fears that the links between the sanitarium’s sewage system and the town’s system endangered the public, saying in a statement, according to The Guardian, “We can’t allow putting the health and life of local residents at risk, and demand that top officials take urgent moves to prevent people from China from being put here.”

The masked bus passengers, which included Ukrainians and foreign nationals, will be held in quarantine for 14 days.

Ukraine’s health minister, Zoriana Skaletska, said she would join those in quarantine to show the country there was nothing to fear. She planned to operate the ministry remotely from inside the quarantine, which the BBC noted, would be via Skype.

“Together with them I will spend the next 14 days, in the same premises, in the same conditions,” Skaletska wrote in a Facebook post. “I hope my presence will reassure both those in Novi Sanzhary and the rest of the country.

“I want to emphasize: These people are our fellow citizens, they are not strangers to us. We live in the same country and we have to take care of their health and safety.”

She added at the end of her message that she would miss her daughter’s 10th birthday, writing, “I love you so much and really wanted to celebrate this important day with you.

“When I return, we’ll celebrate it with you one more time.” Newsweek has contacted Skaletska for further comment.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy tried to calm fears, saying that coronavirus had not reached Ukraine yet and his government was doing all it to keep it that way.

He wrote on Facebook, “There is no bacteriological danger,” adding “but there is a different danger..the danger of forgetting that all of us are human and all of us are Ukrainians.”

The graph below shows the locations of confirmed coronavirus cases.