[More
than a dozen nations pulled their citizens from Wuhan. But how evacuees were
handled once they got home varied country by country.]
By
Miriam Jordan and Austin Ramzy
 |
|
An
aircraft carrying Americans evacuated from China arriving at March Air Reserve
Base
in California on Wednesday. Credit Mike Blake/Reuters
|
LOS
ANGELES — About 200
Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, landed at a military base in Southern
California on Wednesday, as countries around the world began pulling their
citizens from the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak.
“The whole plane erupted in cheers when the
crew said, ‘Welcome home to the United States,’” said Dr. Anne Zink, the chief
medical officer for Alaska, where the plane stopped en route to California.
But “home” was not immediately in the cards
for the evacuees.
Upon landing at the March Air Reserve Base in
Riverside, the passengers were met on the tarmac by personnel in biohazard
suits, loaded onto waiting buses and instructed to remain on the base for three
days of medical screening. Only when they are cleared will they be allowed to
continue on home.
The authorities, however, were at pains to to
say it was not a quarantine.
“We are respecting the rights of them as
individuals,” said Dr. Nancy Knight, a senior official with the federal Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. “We are doing that in a way that protects
their health, the health of uniformed service members and the health of the
community.”
The passengers, mostly American consular
officials and their families, returned to the United States as the coronavirus
continued to spread around the globe, with the number of cases spiking
dramatically and two major airlines canceling all flights to and from China.
By early Thursday, there were confirmed
reports of infection in at least 16 countries, with more than 7,700 cases in
China alone — topping the SARS outbreak there in 2002 and 2003. The official
death toll there stood at 170, but the real number is believed to be much
higher. On Thursday, the World Health Organization will again take up the
question of whether to declare a global health emergency.
As governments around the world struggle to
detect and prevent infection, it was clear on Wednesday that there was no
international consensus on the best way to proceed.
However carefully the health authorities
chose their words, the evacuees in the United States, for example, appeared to
be, for all practical purposes, quarantined. They will also be monitored for 14
days by medical teams in their own communities when they go home.
In Australia, Prime Minister Scott Morrison
said citizens evacuated from Wuhan would be held for a two-week quarantine on
Christmas Island, also the site of an Australian immigration detention center.
And South Korea’s National Police Agency said
that it had instructed its officers that they have the power to detain people
who are suspected of carrying the coronavirus and refuse to be quarantined.
But other countries were taking a less strict
approach.
Japan, for example, also evacuated citizens
from China, but acquiesced when two evacuees who did not have symptoms declined
to see a doctor. A third evacuee who did show symptoms was allowed to wait for
test results at home.
As it spreads globally, the new coronavirus,
which was first discovered in China last month, has begun to infect people who
never visited China. Some have fallen ill in Germany, Japan, Taiwan and
Vietnam.
“We’ve seen it spread between people in
Wuhan, in other parts of China, and now these countries,” said Benjamin
Cowling, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Hong Kong.
“What we don’t know is how quickly it
spreads,” Dr. Cowling said. “We’ve seen small clusters, but we don’t know if
those turn into chains of transmission that grow from two to four to eight to
16 — or if it can be controlled and won’t be further transmitted.”
As countries evacuated their citizens from
Wuhan — among them France, South Korea, Morocco, Germany, Kazakhstan, Britain,
Canada, Russia, the Netherlands and Myanmar — commercial airlines curtailed
service to China. British Airways and Air Canada suspended flights altogether.
The Americans who were repatriated on
Wednesday landed at the air base shortly after 8 a.m. after the State
Department-chartered flight stopped in Anchorage to refuel and for the
passengers to be screened — twice — for the virus.
At a news conference later in Riverside,
Christopher R. Braden, a deputy director of the disease control centers, said
the Americans would be “fully evaluated.”
“We think we can do the full evaluation in
three days,” Dr. Braden said. “Some of that evaluation is taking tests and
flying samples to the C.D.C. in Atlanta.” The agency has the country’s only
laboratory that can test for the coronavirus.
At a raucous, packed news conference, Dr.
Braden and Dr. Knight were peppered with questions about the wisdom of
releasing the former Wuhan residents into communities across the country.
Dr. Braden said that if an evacuee deemed a
danger to the community insisted on leaving before the 72-hour period expired,
“we can institute an individual quarantine for that person — and we will.”
But he also said there was no indication that
anyone wanted to leave right away.
Some Americans remained stranded in Wuhan,
unable to secure a seat on the plane. Family members were incensed to learn
that the Boeing 747 had taken off with empty seats. Some passengers lacked the
proper documentation, and others did not show up, Dr. Braden said. In the end,
around 200 passengers were evacuated, not the expected 240, he said.
“I don’t even know what to say to those
numbers,” said Jiacheng Yu of Dallas, whose mother, Ying Cheng, a 61-year-old
American citizen, was visiting her own mother in Wuhan for the Lunar New Year
and could not get a seat.
When asked whether other flights were
planned, a State Department official said its embassy in Beijing “continues to
work with the Chinese authorities on other options for U.S. citizens in Wuhan
to depart Wuhan and/or China.”
At least one American chose not to try to
board Wednesday’s flight. Winifred Conrad, a 27-year-old English teacher, had a
lingering cough and was afraid she would instead be handed over to Chinese
officials, said her mother, Anastasia Coles of Lubbock, Texas.
But there was another reason: Ms. Conrad’s
cat, Lulu.
In text message to her mother, she said:
“Don’t freak out. I was offered a seat and I surrendered it to a 10-year-old
girl.” She added, “I was told I can’t bring an animal.”
The number of confirmed cases in China
increased by nearly 30 percent from Wednesday to Thursday, according to the
country’s National Health Commission.
The Chinese health authorities said Wednesday
that 132 people had died from the virus in the country. The previous count, on
Tuesday, was 106.
Wang Xiaodong, the governor of Hubei, the
home of province of Wuhan, said Wednesday evening that the fight against the
virus was at a crucial point, and that medical supplies were severely insufficient.
As cases emerged outside China, some appeared
to involve infections between family members, who are at greater risk while
caring for sick relatives. Others, however, appear to have spread between
people with less intimate connections.
A Japanese tour bus driver in his 60s who had
driven two tour groups visiting Japan from Wuhan was confirmed to have the
virus, officials said on Tuesday. He had no history of traveling to Wuhan.
“I think what that says is, if we can get
transmission in such a setting, then we can certainly get it in the waiting
room of a clinic or a hospital,” said Dr. Arthur Reingold, a professor of
epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley. “That’s very
concerning.”
On Tuesday, German officials said a
33-year-old man from Starnberg, a town near Munich, was apparently infected
with the virus after attending a training event with a Chinese colleague on
Jan. 21. The colleague flew home two days later. The German man was being
treated in isolation and officials were tracing people who had been in contact
with him.
Late Tuesday, health officials in Germany
said three more people from the same company had also been infected. They were
admitted to a clinic in Munich, where they, too, were to be isolated. Forty
other people who came into close contact with the company employees were to be
tested on Wednesday, officials said.
The outbreak and the travel restrictions it
has led to have already had a big impact on businesses, some of which are
temporarily halting operations in parts of China.
Starbucks, for example, said it was
temporarily closing half of its stores in the country. Closing were also
announced by McDonald’s and Yum China, which operates the KFC, Pizza Hut and
Taco Bell brands in China.
And Apple said the outbreak could disrupt
suppliers and its revenues.
Miriam Jordan reported from Los Angeles, and
Austin Ramzy from Hong Kong. Reporting was contributed by Russell Goldman from
Hong Kong; Motoko Rich, Makiko Inoue and Eimi Yamamitsu from Tokyo; and Choe
Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea.