Life in an immigration detention center on Australia’s Christmas Island has not been as bad as David Huang feared. It is certainly a far cry from the conditions that thousands of asylum seekers have faced in the country’s offshore detention centers in recent years.

Sure, the steel on the building’s facade is rusted in parts. The Wi-Fi is shaky, especially at meal times when he and others are trying to contact their families and friends. Dinner, at least on Tuesday, the first night he spent there, was uninspiring and mushy.

Yet after being evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, he had set his expectations low.

Image David Huang

Mr. Huang, a 22-year-old student from Sydney, is one of about 270 Australian citizens and permanent residents who have been flown out of China in the past week and taken to Christmas Island. None of the evacuees have tested positive for the virus, Australia’s health minister said on Tuesday.