Coronavirus pushes robots to front lines of China's hospitals

HONG KONG – The deadly coronavirus outbreak, which has pushed the Chinese medical community into overdrive, has also prompted the country's hospitals to more quickly adopt robots as medical assistants. Telepresence bots that allow remote video communication, patient health monitoring and safe delivery of medical goods are growing in number on hospital floors in urban China. They are now acting as safe go-betweens that help curb the spread of the coronavirus. Keenon Robotics Co., a Shanghai-based company, deployed 16 robots of a model nicknamed "Little Peanut" to a hospital in Hangzhou after a group of Wuhan travelers to Singapore were held in quarantine. Siasun Robot and Automation Co. donated seven medical robots and 14 catering robots to the Shenyang Red Cross to help hospitals combat the virus on Wednesday, according to a media release on the company's website.