A mother and son feared being left trapped in Thailand after their flight was cancelled due to coronavirus concerns.

Jonathon O’Rourke, of Andreas, and his mother Natalie Thompson, 75, were told there were no flights back from Phuket on the day they had booked to leave with China Southern Airlines.

A number of airlines have cancelled or reduced their routes around mainland China due to the spreading growth of the virus, which originated from Wuhan in China and is said to have killed around 200 people.

Coronavirus has since been declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation.

Jonathon and his mother flew into Thailand on January 20 via Guangdong in south-east China.

But with flights cancelled they feared they would be left stranded.

They said their travel insurance wouldn’t cover flights as infectious disease is not covered. Early on Saturday, however, they managed to board a flight from Phuket back to Bangkok.

Jonathon, 46, said: ’The trip has been really fun, but the worry of being quarantined has really upset my mum. The feeling in Phuket is panicked and shops are sold out of some things. The government has given the taxi drivers a small bottle of alcohol and told them to wipe down their cabs.’

He added that nobody was venturing out and that chemists had sold out of face masks.

’Luckily mum bought a five pack of Hello Kitty ones in Bangkok, so we are both safe and stylish and we have got hand sanitizer from the Royal Show courtesy of the Isle of Man Bank!’ he added.

At Phuket airport, a thermometer was place against their temples before they were nodded through.

Jonathon said: ’A vast array of masks were visible upon boarding the plane with everything from the medical type to the humorous, the fashionable, the ridiculous and the cartoonish.

’As soon as we were through security we spied a slight Chinese woman struggling to shut her bulging case which was crammed full with box upon box of activated charcoal masks.

’Although passports were being checked, face masks were neither being removed or asked to be removed.

’On the plane we noticed all the pilots and cabin crew were masked and one of the passengers was even "double masking" with one on top off the other.’

The pair said they had tried ringing and sending emails to China Southern Airlines but had not managed to get any reply on what the status of their flight home is from Bangkok that is supposed to be routed via Guangdong.