The State Department is transporting 14 Americans infected with coronavirus back to the United States after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against the move.
The 14 infected Americans are part of 328 Americans being flown from Tokyo’s Haneda Airport after they were quarantined on the Diamond Princess cruise ship stationed in Japan’s Yokohama harbor. On Sunday, heated debates broke out between State Department officials and the CDC over whether the passengers should be returned to the U.S., according to the Washington Post.
“It was like the worst nightmare,” said a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too.”
The CDC contended that the infected passengers could spread the disease aboard the flight home while the State Department prepared plans to quarantine sections of two Boeing 747s with a 10-foot-high plastic-lined enclosure. Trump officials initially struggled with the decision but decided to evacuate the Americans after the number of infected passengers on the cruise ship jumped quickly.
After briefing Washington lawmakers on Feb. 12, the decision was made to evacuate the Americans stuck on the cruise ship. The State Department put out an urgent announcement through the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo that called for any American who wanted to return home to let the embassy know immediately. Forty Americans remained in Japan to be treated in Tokyo hospitals.
The virus, which is a flu-like respiratory disease similar to SARS, can be passed without symptoms and has a fatality rate of 2.6% in mainland China, where more than 2,000 people have died and more than 75,000 have become sick.
The 14 Americans will double the number of active coronavirus cases in the U.S.
