One of two State Department-chartered flights carrying additional American evacuees from Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak – has landed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego Calif., after sources said it was briefly held in Vancouver over “persons of interest” who had possibly developed symptoms of the illness.
Another flight, which according to the same sources, was previously being held at Travis Air Force Base in California over the same concerns, is still en route to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where some passengers will disembark before it leaves again to drop off the remaining Americans at Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.
The two U.S. officials close to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Fox News on Friday that the “persons of interest” were one passenger on each flight. An update on their status was not immediately given.
All passengers will be subject to a 14-day quarantine upon arrival at their destinations. Those who arrived at Miramar join the 167 Americans who arrived last week and have been living in quarantine on base. Five of those individuals have since been taken to two area hospitals after developing possible symptoms of the virus, including two children.
On Thursday, an official with the federal department told Fox News that the two flights carrying some 300 Americans that were scheduled to arrive in the U.S. on Friday would likely be the last State Department-chartered flights out of the city.
The plane carrying additional American evacuees landed at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego Calif., after sources said it was briefly held in Vancouver over “persons of interest” who had possibly developed symptoms of the illness.
“At this time, we do not anticipate staging additional flights beyond those planned to depart February 6,” the spokesperson said, adding any additional U.S. citizens still in China “should attempt to depart by commercial means.”
Some 638 people have died from the pneumonia-like illness, while more than 30,000 people have been sickened worldwide, according to Friday estimates. There are 12 confirmed cases of the novel virus in the U.S., the first of which occurred in a Washington State man who has since been released from the hospital.
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Six other cases have been confirmed in California, as well as one in Wisconsin, one in Arizona, one in Massachusetts and two in Illinois. No deaths have been reported in the U.S., and the large majority of cases still remain in China.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
Fox News’ Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
