Four more planes carrying American passengers from Wuhan, China, will arrive in the U.S. this week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced today (Feb. 5) during a press conference.
The planes will land today and tomorrow at Travis Air Force Base in Sacramento, California; Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego; Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas; and Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.
The first group of U.S. citizens — 195 passengers — were flown from Wuhan to the U.S. on Jan. 29 and are still under quarantine at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California. Their 14 days of legal quarantine will end the beginning of next week, and if they're healthy, they will be free to go home, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, the director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during the news conference.
None of those quarantined have tested positive for the coronavirus, but one child at March Air Reserve Base was recently taken to a hospital after developing a fever, Riverside County health officials announced on Tuesday (Feb. 4). It's unclear if that fever is related to the coronavirus or not.
"We do not believe these people pose a threat to the communities where they are being housed as we are taking measures to minimize any contact," she said. Authorities do expect there will be some confirmed coronavirus infections among Americans returning from Hubei province. Messonnier noted that they may not catch every passenger returning with the novel coronavirus, but "if we can catch the majority of them, that will slow the entry of this virus into the United States."
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Originally published on Live Science.
