A charter flight from Wuhan, China, carrying approximately 200 U.S. citizens, taxis to a stop at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, Calif. Wednesday morning Jan. 29, 2020.
Will Lester | Inland Valley Daily Bulletin via Getty Images
U.S. health officials have quarantined 195 Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, taking the rare step of issuing a mandatory order for the first time in more than 50 years to help contain an outbreak of a new coronavirus that’s spread to roughly 10,000 people across the globe.
“While we recognize this is an unprecedented action, we are facing an unprecedented public health threat,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said on a conference call with reporters Friday.
“This is a very serious public health situation and CDC and federal government has and will continue to take aggressive action to protect the public,” she said. “If we take strong measures now, we may be able to blunt the impact on the United States.”
Quarantining the passengers was the best way to protect the public after a report from the New England Journal of Medicine confirmed that the new coronavirus, which was discovered about a month ago, is capable of infecting individuals prior to showing symptoms. The quarantine will last 14 days from when the plane left Wuhan, China, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The passengers arrived at the March Air Reserve Base on Wednesday. They were screened multiple times and monitored throughout the flight, health officials said.
Messonnier said Wednesday that the CDC has 20 staff on hand to monitor their health. If any of the passengers begin to exhibit symptoms, they will be moved to a hospital, she said. She said the goal of the quarantine is to prevent “as much as possible community spread” of the coronavirus.
“This is one of the tools in our toolbox to mitigate the potential impact of this novel virus on that United States,” she said.
U.S. health officials confirmed Thursday the nation’s first person-to-person transmission of the virus — the husband of a Chicago woman who brought the infection back from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak. Public health officials also said they were monitoring 21 patients in Illinois for possible infections.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.