Free from 2-week quarantine at Travis AFB, some coronavirus evacuees fly home via SMF
A portion of Americans who had been quarantined at Travis Air Force Base for the past two weeks, evacuated from Wuhan, China, for potential exposure to the deadly coronavirus, now officially called COVID-19, are being bused Tuesday to Sacramento International Airport for flights home.
Roughly 200 evacuees from Wuhan were flown to Travis on Feb. 5, placed under a 14-day quarantine order and housed at the on-base hotel, the Westwind Inn, officials with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month.
The Feb. 5 quarantine was lifted Tuesday morning, with dozens of Wuhan evacuees bused to two major, nearby airports.
Sacramento County airports spokeswoman Samantha Mott confirmed Tuesday morning that those leaving the quarantine were given a choice of being shuttled to either San Francisco International Airport or SMF, and that some had arrived at the latter before 10 a.m.
In a joint statement Monday, the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that more than 300 U.S. citizens who had been passengers on the Diamond Princess cruise ship would be flown from Japan, some to Travis Air Force Base and some to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland in Texas, for separate 14-day quarantines.
At Travis, the Air Force base said in its own statement Monday, 171 passengers from the Diamond Princess arrived late Sunday and will be kept separate from the two “cohorts” that arrived to the base near Fairfield earlier this month, one on Feb. 5 and one Feb. 7.
None of the evacuees currently at the base “have tested positive for COVID-19 or are symptomatic,” the statement said. Another 14 passengers who did test positive for the virus will not be housed at Travis, officials said.
Mott said she did not have information about how many people were expected to be taken to each airport and that SMF was notified in advance only about the date the quarantine would be lifted.
“For us, they’re just a general member of the traveling public at this point,” Mott said.
This story was originally published February 18, 2020 at 11:09 AM.
