Even as the relationship between Beijing and New Delhi has strained over the past weeks following military face-offs in several areas along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, China has said that it will continue to support India in the fight against the deadly COVID-19 infection.

“Solidarity and cooperation are the most effective weapons against the virus,” said Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong on Monday as the second lot of donations from JackMa Foundation and Alibaba Foundation including ventilators, PPE kits and other medical supplies arrived in Delhi.

Meanwhile, amid a rise in COVID-19 cases and heightened tension between the two countries at the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, China has said that it will repatriate its citizens from India.

A notice on the website of the Chinese Embassy read: “The Chinese diplomatic and consular missions in India will assist international students in India, tourists, temporary business visitors who have difficulties and are in urgent need to take a temporary flight back home to China.”

In a worrying incident in the backdrop of China’s decision to fly back its ciitzens, a man in Greater Noida beat up a Chinese woman living in a condominium for allegedly fostering a stray dog which bit his canine. A Non-Cognizable Report (NCR) has been registered but no arrests have been made so far.

Meanwhile, India is now among the ten countries worst hit by the pandemic that has over 5 million cases worldwide.

The spread of the novel Coronavirus has shown no indication of slowing down with the increase mercury. In fact in the last 15 days it has steadily climbed the graph adding in two weeks more cases than it did in the first 100 days. On Tuesday, the Health Ministry Data revealed that there were 6,535 new cases added in 24 hours which also witnessed 146 new fatalities.

As the total tally of COVID-19 cases in India touched 1,45,380, it also showed a week of continued spurt in the cases hovering close to 6,000 before almost touching the 7,000 mark.

In China, where the outbreak was first reported in Wuhan, 84,095 cases of Coronavirus have been reported with 4,638 deaths.

Globally, 5.4 million people have been infected and nearly 3.4 lakh people have died according to Johns Hopkins data. With 1,662,302 cases United States has maximum number of COVID-19 patients, followed by Brazil with 374,898 cases, and Russia at 353,427 cases.