Health officials have announced a plan to evacuate more than 120 Diamond Princess cruise ship passengers who have been quarantined for two weeks in San Antonio since being rescued from a ship in Tokyo contaminated by coronavirus.
Officials have not revealed the exact number of people they would release from quarantine Tuesday, but some of the passengers may not be eligible yet, according to the new directives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg declared a public health emergency Monday after one of the evacuees who tested positive was allowed out of seclusion for more than 12 hours, according to news reports.
The evacuees are from a ship that had been quarantined in Tokyo in early February.
Credit: Eugene Hoshiko
Credit: Eugene Hoshiko
All the passengers have since been fully evacuated from the ship.
Some of them were being held along with additional evacuees from Wuhan, China, at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where some were due to be released Monday.
Nirenberg said he declared the health emergency because the CDC lacked a detailed plan for the evacuation and he feared that would lead to spreading the COVID-19 virus to the community.
“As mayor of this city, my foremost concern is preventing the spread of the coronavirus to the local community," Nirenberg said in a statement Tuesday. “I’m pleased that the CDC has made changes, and I’m comfortable that the plan as presented will minimize the risk of exposure.”
As part of the new directives from the CDC, only individuals who have been symptom-free for a full 14-day period and who test negative for the virus three times will be eligible for release, according to the city.
Passengers who developed symptoms during the quarantine and tested positive for the virus remain in isolation and are not being released, the city said in its news release.
“These individuals must remain in isolation until free from symptoms and have two negative tests within 24 hours apart to meet the criteria for release,” according to the news release.
Nirenberg said those travelers who make it out of quarantine would not stay in local hotels but would be taken by bus to the airport in shifts that correspond to their flight times. Residents who live nearby would be allowed to rent cars in lieu of a flight, Nirenberg said.
The Associated Press reported the woman who sparked the alarm tested positive for the illness last month after she was evacuated from Wuhan, China. She was released from quarantine Saturday following two negative tests, but then health officials learned that a third lab test came back “weakly positive.”
Nirenberg said Monday that it was “totally unacceptable” that the woman was released from quarantine, and he blamed the Trump administration for a lack of coordination.
“We simply cannot have a screw-up like this from our federal partners,” he said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Sunday the woman did not show any symptoms at the time of her release and that she was returned to quarantine after the new positive test. She was out of quarantine for about 12 hours, during which time she went to a hotel and a shopping mall, said Dr. Anita Kurian, assistant director of San Antonio Metropolitan Health Department, according to the AP.
Kurian said officials consider the exposure risk for people at the mall and hotel to be low, noting that the woman spent much of her time sitting alone at the North Star Mall's food court. Two people who encountered her at the hospital are at a medium risk, she said.
— Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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