Toilet paper was the number one request from the 198 U.S. citizens quarantined at March Air Reserve Base in California while they wait out the two-week coronavirus incubation period.
“We just dropped it off in the parking lot, and their people came and got it,” said a receptionist who answered the phone at the base lodging desk. The quarantined people have been isolated in two separate buildings for five days since arriving from China’s Hubei province, the center of the outbreak.
“In the first few hours, it was kind of a running joke,” the receptionist said, before stating she had no information about how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was caring for the quarantined people, and that base personnel had “no contact” with the temporary residents, who are under the care of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The welcome kit included toys, coloring books, puzzles, and games for the children of the foreign service officers.
Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Rath Hoffman said on Monday that the Department of Defense was hosting the quarantined people but is not involved with their treatment or observation.
“DOD personnel will not be in direct contact with these individuals, nor will these individuals have direct access to the bases beyond the housing,” Hoffman said at the press conference.
The nearly 200 U.S. citizens at March include diplomats and their dependents. They undergo daily screenings and stay in individual rooms on a voluntary basis.
The Pentagon has made available space for up to 1,000 quarantined people at four bases including, the Regional Training Institute in Fort Carson, Colorado; Travis Air Force Base in California; Lackland Air Force Base in Texas; and Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in California.
The CDC’s press officer Scott Pauley said on Tuesday that a team of government doctors was sent to the 452nd Air Mobility Wing in Riverside, California, to monitor people for symptoms, but no further information was available.
A press release from the base said March was given less than 24 hours’ notice to coordinate with federal, state, county, and local agencies and with emergency services personnel to assist the U.S. diplomats and their families.
The CDC reported on Monday that 36 U.S. states have people under investigation with 11 confirmed cases in four states: Washington, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts. Worldwide, more than 17,000 people have been infected by the respiratory virus, with more than 350 deaths, mainly in China.
