Nebraska Hosts People Under Quarantine for Coronavirus

Published by admin on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 4:00am

A plane carrying evacuees from the virus zone in China lands at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar Wednesday, Feb. 5, 2020, in San Diego. One of two jets carrying Americans fleeing the virus zone in China landed Wednesday morning at Miramar after first landing at an Air Force base in Northern California. The passengers are scheduled to be quarantined at the California military base, officials said. (AP)

Scott Stewart

The Daily Record

Nebraska is hosting a group of Americans under quarantine after possible exposure to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China at a National Guard facility at the edge of the metropolitan area.

Evacuees from China flew into Eppley Airfield and were taken to Camp Ashland, which sits about 30 miles southwest of the airport.

The approximately 70 passengers were not going to go inside the terminal at Eppley, officials announced Thursday morning. The patients are expected to range from children to adults.

Camp Ashland is prepared to house those under quarantine in three buildings with 85 hotel-style rooms at the camp. Guard officials have said the evacuees won’t interact with guardsmen or employees while staying there.

The University of Nebraska Medical Center and its clinical partner Nebraska Medicine will partner with the federal government to monitor the evacuees.

“We have the opportunity to step up at a national level to help these rescued Americans and their families,” Gov. Pete Ricketts said Thursday morning. “We have the expertise right here at UNMC.”

Nebraska Medicine and UNMC handled the treatment of three patients with Ebola in 2014. They recently opened U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Training, Simulation & Quarantine Center, providing a centralized location for quarantine efforts and adding to the med center’s accomplished Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. The CDC said everyone arriving in Omaha is not sick. Anyone at Camp Ashland who develops symptoms would be moved to the Biocontainment Unit or otherwise placed into care at UNMC.

Planes from China also were being sent to military bases in California and Texas, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced last week.

All passengers from China are being screened by federal personnel for symptoms. Americans returning from China’s Hubei province, the center of the outbreak, are subject to 14 days of mandatory quarantine. For more information on the outbreak, visit cdc.gov/ncov or dhhs.ne.gov/coronavirus. UNMC Global Center for Health Security has more information available at unmc.edu/healthsecurity. Watch a video of Thursday’s news conference at omahadailyrecord.com.

The Associated Press contributed material to this report.