Travis AFB taking 1st coronavirus evacuees in hours. Passengers virus-free, officials say
As many as 250 evacuees bound for California from Wuhan, China will arrive at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield as early as Wednesday and could spend two weeks at the air base, federal sources with knowledge of the matter told The Sacramento Bee.
UPDATE: Flights carrying coronavirus evacuees from Wuhan, China, arrive at Travis
None of the evacuees to the Solano County base from the coronavirus zone have the virus. They are among an estimated 550 aboard a pair of flights headed for California, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation told CNN in a Tuesday report.
The news was among a flurry of coronavirus-related developments across California from an incoming traveler from China placed into quarantine late Monday after landing at Los Angeles International Airport; to a child in federal quarantine now hospitalized with fever at a Riverside-area hospital; to two Central Valley coronavirus patients whose worsening conditions prompted them to be isolated at a San Francisco hospital.
In Riverside County, where the U.S. government evacuated 195 employees from China’s coronavirus zone, a minor held in federal quarantine at March Air Reserve Base near Riverside, developed a fever and was taken to an area hospital late Monday, Riverside County health officials announced Tuesday. The passengers housed at March remain under a federal 14-day quarantine — the first federally designated quarantine in 50 years.
The minor, accompanied by a parent, was taken to Moreno Valley’s Riverside University Health System Medical Center “out of an abundance of caution.”
Testing samples will be sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention with results expected later in the week. No novel coronavirus cases have been reported in Riverside County, said health officials.
Also late Monday, a passenger who arrived at Los Angeles International Airport on a flight from China was placed under quarantine and transported to the March facility, health officials announced in the Tuesday statement.
The new arrival shows no signs of the virus and is being isolated from the passengers who arrived last week as a cautionary measure and because of the person’s travel history, health officials said Tuesday. Riverside County health officials said the federal quarantine order for the Los Angeles arrival will expire Thursday, Feb. 6.
Meantime, two novel coronavirus patients in San Benito County whose conditions worsened late Sunday were transferred Monday to University of California, San Francisco, where they remained in isolation Tuesday, said UCSF Health officials Tuesday.
UCSF Health specializes in the care of patients with infectious diseases and treated patients during the 2003 SARS epidemic. On Tuesday, officials said UCSF Health “instituted a number of measures to screen patients with potential 2019-nCoV, as well as to prevent the coronavirus’ spread.”
Public health officials with the Centers for Disease Control have said they expect to see more cases of new coronavirus — a respiratory illness that causes fever, coughing and shortness of breath, as travelers come to the United States from China — even as state health officials urge that the risk of the virus’ spread to the general public in California remains low.
Close to 24,000 people have come down with the new coronavirus worldwide, roughly two-thirds of them in the mainland China province of Hubei where the outbreak originated. Reported deaths numbered 492 as of 5 p.m. California time Tuesday — a mortality rate of roughly two of every 100 cases.
Eleven cases have been reported in the U.S. Six of those are in California including the San Benito County cases and reports in Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Clara counties., according to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science, which is mapping coronavirus cases worldwide.
The new coronavirus, like SARS and MERS, closely resembles a virus found in bats. Scientists are not certain when or how the virus spilled over into the human population, but researchers at UC Davis say it is possible that the virus may have been transmitted between humans for years before the outbreak linked to a market in the city of Wuhan.
Meantime, the China-based flights bound for California were slated to take off Tuesday for Fairfield and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego, the U.S. source told CNN Tuesday.
Travis and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego, along with March, are among five U.S. sites to take coronavirus evacuees. Fairfield’s Travis AFB is home to the David Grant USAF Medical Center, the Air Force’s largest hospital in the contiguous United States.
The Pentagon has said military personnel will not be in contact with those quarantined. Rather, the staff of the Department of Health and Human Services and their contractors will be charged with providing for their needs.
Travis officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment but had been preparing for incoming evacuees since receiving word Feb. 1 from Department of Health and Services.
In a Feb. 1 Facebook post to Travis personnel, officials said evacuees would be housed at Westwind Inn, Travis’ on-base hotel, with a safety cordon established away from on-base residences. The federal Department of Health and Human Services told military installations including Travis to provide housing facilities through Feb. 29.
U.S. Rep. John Garamendi, D-Fairfield, whose district includes Travis Air Force Base, has been in regular contact with federal health officials at the CDC and Health and Human Services regarding the virus and incoming evacuees. Garamendi and other Northern California lawmakers were briefed Monday on the incoming flight, communications director Eric Olsen said Tuesday.
“We can publicly confirm 250 individuals,” Olsen said, adding the Fairfield congressman has “continued confidence” in how federal health officials are handling the virus.
“CDC is taking the lead,” Olsen said. “They have a comprehensive strategy in place and are taking it very seriously.”
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 2:13 PM.
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