13 U.S. citizens from cruise liner in Japan at 'high risk' of coronavirus being treated in Nebraska
18 February, 2020
Thirteen U.S. citizens deemed "risky" for the deadly new coronavirus are being treated at a federally designated facility in the University of Nebraska following their evacuation from a cruise liner in Japan, officials said Monday.
A complete of 338 Americans were flown home from the Diamond Princess cruise liner off Yokohama, touching down first at Travis Air Force Base in California shortly before midnight Sunday.
The next flight arrived early Monday at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, Texas.
"A select number of risky patients were transported onward from both places using those same aircraft to Omaha, Nebraska for care at the University of Nebraska," Health insurance and Human Services official Robert Kadlec told reporters.
STATE DEPT. official William Walters added these included six passengers from the bottom in California and seven from the bottom in Texas.
Some of these included spouses and it had been not clear how many had tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.
Shortly prior to the flights left Japan, U.S. officials were informed that 14 of the passengers, tested days earlier, had received excellent results.
The medical staff in Nebraska are re-testing the cases for themselves, after those patients were placed in isolated areas of both planes for the journey home.
"Until we're done with testing are going to self-isolated to their room," Shelly Schwedhelm, the official at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, said in another briefing.
She added that 12 of the patients were in a quarantine unit while one was in a bio-containment facility -- one of three selected in the united states to look after U.S. citizens evacuated from Africa with the Ebola virus.
Forty other U.S. citizens who was simply on the ship and had previously tested positive were being treated in Japanese hospitals and were not allowed to fly.
Beyond those presented on the most recent flights, Walters, the STATE DEPT. official, added that the federal government was continuing to track the movements of 60 U.S. nationals still in Japan.
The government can be following 92 U.S. citizens who remain on the Westerdam cruise liner off Cambodia and also 260 more in hotels in Phnom Penh.
"Roughly 300 Americans have departed Cambodia but only after testing by the federal government of Cambodia's ministry of health," he added.
Impoverished Cambodia is a staunch Chinese ally with a threadbare medical system.
A U.S. individual in a hospital in Kuala Lumpur is so far the only person to have tested positive for the virus from the Westerdam.
There have up to now been 15 confirmed cases in the U.S., in line with the latest tally by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Source: japantoday.com