Some 346 Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan, China, amid the deadly coronavirus outbreak emerged from their quarantine at two military bases in California on Tuesday, U.S. officials say.
The group includes 180 Americans who have been living under a mandatory quarantine order at Travis Air Force Base, roughly 40 miles southwest of Sacramento, and 166 U.S. citizens who have been living at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego.
“One person from the MCAS Miramar group who is confirmed to have COVID-19 remains under care at a local hospital,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a statement sent to NPR.
All of the other U.S. evacuees “have been medically cleared and CDC officials have lifted their quarantine orders,” said Jason McDonald, a CDC press officer.
The evacuees left China on planes chartered by the State Department in early February, as the city of Wuhan, center of the novel coronavirus outbreak, was placed under a near-total lockdown. Their 14-day mandatory quarantine is now over.
“It is important to know that these people being released from quarantine pose no health risk to the surrounding community, or to the communities they will be returning to,” McDonald said.
So, they were quarrantined for 14 days, BUT some patients did not test positive until after 42 days or more of coming into contact with the virus, so….