Evacuated from coronavirus hot zone, 178 land in California to applause, are ‘glad to be home’
Applause greeted 178 Americans as they exited a plane from China that arrived at Fairfield’s Travis Air Force Base in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, said Dr. Henry Walke, an official with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The passengers are coming from China’s Hubei province, where there was intense and escalating community-wide spread of the new coronavirus, so they have been classified as at high risk of exposure, Walke said. At the same time, he said, medical personnel are concerned about the mental health of all the evacuees and are trying to keep their spirits up.
All the people and families are facing 14 days of quarantine at Travis, one of five military installations where U.S. citizens, a number of them government employees, are being housed around the nation. Another planeload of U.S. citizens touched down at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego.
“They’re glad to be home,” said Walke, who spoke during a news conference Wednesday in Fairfield. “There’s a lot of information, a lot of fear about this emerging disease. They had to wait to get on the flight. It’s a long flight – more than 11 hours. There’s uncertainty. They were very happy to be here.”
A child on the flight had a case of fever, Walke said, and he and his mother have been taken to a hospital isolation unit. The cause of the fever is unknown, Walke said, stressing that children get fevers for many reasons. Out of an abundance of caution, he said, the child will be tested for new coronavirus.
“Medical personnel have been screening, monitoring and evaluating these folks every step of the way, including before takeoff, during the flight and upon arrival. This includes checking temperature and observing for respiratory symptoms,” Walke said. “We know this situation may be concerning to people in the Travis Air Force Base community. Based on our experience with other coronaviruses, we don’t believe these people pose a risk to this community because we are taking measures to minimize any exposures.”
CDC official calls quarantine ‘unprecedented’
Walke is the director of the Division of Preparedness and Emerging Infections at the CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases. He described the quarantine as an “unprecedented action” but added that “this is an unprecedented threat.” He said he and other public health officials have had two town halls with individuals who live and work near Travis.
“We know this situation my be concerning to people in the Travis Air Force Base community,” he said. “Based on our experience with other coronaviruses, we don’t believe these people pose a risk to this community because we are taking measures to minimize any exposures.”
In addition, Walke said, each of the people and families in quarantine are advised to maintain at least a 6-foot distance from one another. Walke called it “social distancing.” Parents are told that their children should avoid sharing toys with children from any other family to keep the illness from spreading by contact.
The evacuation planes – two 747 jumbo jets operated by Kalitta Air – arrived at Travis at 3:59 and 4:24 a.m. with one plane unloading passengers one by one into Hangar 16 while the other, bound for Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego, refueled before taking off just after 8 a.m.
Once parked, the first wave of passengers, some holding luggage, were escorted one by one and in small groups out of the plane. Officials walked them beneath the jumbo jet, emblazoned with the name of cargo carrier Kalitta Air, and into the adjacent Hangar 16.
Between deplaning passengers, aerial footage from KGO-TV, the ABC affiliate in San Francisco, showed personnel in white protective suits, some wearing respirators, unloading luggage from the cabins using the air stairs.
How the illness spreads
Coronavirus typically passes between people when someone coughs or sneezes and droplets containing the virus spray into the air, Walke said, but like cold and flu viruses, it is possible it could spread when people touch surfaces where droplets have landed.
In general, public health officials say, people can prevent the spread of such viruses by following everyday precautions: Wash your hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds; avoid touching your mouth, nose and eyes as these are areas where the pathogens can grow; cleanse or avoid touching objects or surfaces that multiple people use; cover your mouth when you cough or sneeze, either using a tissue or your elbow, and throw used tissues in the trash right away; and if you are sick, stay at home.
Also on Wednesday, the number of U.S. coronavirus cases rose to 12 as Wisconsin public health officials confirmed that an individual who had returned from China was diagnosed with the respiratory illness. The new coronavirus may cause fever, coughing and shortness of breath. It is a close cousin to the more deadly SARS and MERS coronaviruses, and all can be traced to a virus found in bats.
Since the outbreak of new coronavirus was reported in December, at least 564 people have died of the illness and more than 28,000 have been diagnosed with it. Typically, a vaccine takes two to three years to develop, if one can be found at all, but a biotech firm in Maryland has said it believes it can produce a vaccine for the new coronavirus in 90 days, noting it had done so for the ebola virus. Any vaccine would still have to undergo a period of human trials.
Six of the 12 U.S. cases of the new coronavirus have been diagnosed in California, and Illinois and California are the only states where there has been human-to-human transmission of the disease. In those two cases, people who returned home from China with the virus had infected their spouses.
Adjusting to life on the base
At Travis, outside contractors are handling food services, trash pickup and the other mechanics of daily life. Health workers will work to help the arrivals adjust to their new routine.
“They’re not stuck in their room – there are kids among the evacuees – so the staff is putting together activities,” Walke said. “We’re not restricting people to their rooms.”
Fairfield’s Travis AFB is home to the David Grant USAF Medical Center, the Air Force’s largest hospital in the contiguous United States, though Pentagon officials previously said “should routine monitoring of the evacuees identify ill individuals, HHS has procedures in place to transport them to a local civilian hospital.”
Travis officials told base personnel in a Facebook post that evacuees would be housed at Westwind Inn, with a safety cordon established away from on-base residences.
“Travis airmen and personnel will not be directly in contact with the evacuees and evacuees will not have access to any base location other than their assigned housing,” Travis officials said Saturday.
More evacuees likely to go elsewhere
More flights are expected in the coming days to evacuate more Americans from Wuhan, which has been sealed off since Jan. 23. The State Department tweeted it “may be staging flights” on Thursday and encouraged Americans with valid passports to contact them.
“Chinese health authorities will be screening travelers at the airport and may deny boarding to anyone who may be of health concern,” the U.S. Embassy in China said. “They may also deny boarding to the passenger’s family members or involuntarily hospitalize anyone of health concern.”
Any new arrivals subject to the nation’s first quarantine in 50 years would likely be housed at Miramar, Lackland Air Force Base near San Antonio or the Army’s Fort Collins in Colorado. Additional evacuees may go to the March base in Riverside, too. Pentagon officials said Tuesday that Defense Secretary Mark Esper had set aside housing in response to a call from the Department of Health and Human Services for space to quarantine 1,000 individuals.
“We are just preparing on the backend to provide the housing if needed,” said Assistant Defense Secretary Jonathan Rath Hoffman. “Because the hope is that no one has to be quarantined going forward. But we’re prepared to help if needed.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 1:34 PM.
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