BEIJING: A woman has found a rather unorthodox way of protecting herself from the coronavirus epidemic in China — she stays home and sends out her R/C car to go shopping for food in her hometown in Shandong province!

With China in lockdown, many people are resorting to unusual methods to help go about their day to day lives and Chen Tao’s idea is brilliant. Using the car’s two cameras and remote controls to navigate it to a shop in the city of Jinan, she is able to collect steamed buns and other food items.

Chen says she drives the vehicle – which looks to be a scale model of the Land Rover Defender – as far as half a mile, allowing her to easily make it to the store, and has attached her phone number on the little battery-operated vehicle which has a box hitched to the back for groceries. She uses the phone’s loudspeaker to communicate with the shop owner and complete her transaction.

The death toll from the virus — which emerged last month in Wuhan — has climbed to 1,665 officials said.

(with inputs from Agencies)