Covid-19: Robots may become heroes in war on coronavirus

A handout picture taken in early March 2020 shows people looking at a robot during a trial at a field hospital in a sports stadium in Wuhan, in China’s central Hubei province, where robots were put to use during China’s coronavirus outbreak. Robots have never been as useful as now in hospitals, where they help fight the pandemic by cleaning, providing info, bringing food and drugs, measuring vitals and being intermediaries for doctors and nurses who don’t have to be close to patients all the time and are therefore better protected. — CloudMinds/AFP

SAN FRANCISCO: Long maligned as job-stealers and aspiring overlords, robots are being increasingly relied on as fast, efficient, contagion-proof champions in the war against the deadly coronavirus.

One team of robots temporarily cared for patients in a makeshift hospital in Wuhan, the Chinese city where the Covid-19 outbreak began.