Ohioan quarantined after escaping China
A central Ohio man who was stuck in Wuhan, China, amid the coronavirus outbreak has escaped the city but isn’t quite home.
John McGory, 65, of Westerville, flew to California last week on a rescue plane the U.S. State Department had sent to evacuate citizens who were fleeing the epicenter of the outbreak of the virus, which is now called COVID-19.
McGory is in a required 14-day quarantine at Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego, he said. He has been there for just over a week and will remain for at least five more days.
“It will be interesting to see what they do once we’re out of here,” McGory joked. “I can’t blame the government. They’re trying to learn about this disease as well.”
COVID-19 has killed more than 1,000 people in China. Just as the public learned of the virus in late January,
McGory was preparing to retire and return home after teaching English to students at Jianghan University in China for six years.
Five Ohioans had tested negative for the virus as of Thursday, according to the Ohio Department of Health. The U.S. had 15 confirmed cases as of Thursday evening, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 13th case was a person who returned to the U.S. on the flight with McGory on Feb. 5.
Several passengers who felt ill were hospitalized on arriving in California, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a telephone briefing with reporters Wednesday. One passenger showed mild symptoms of COVID-19 and was diagnosed with the virus after returning to the U.S.
“Given the spread of the virus in Wuhan, it is not surprising to see a positive case among people who recently returned from there,” Messonnier said. “That is, in fact, the reason they are being quarantined.”
McGory’s trip back to the U.S. started on Feb. 4, and when he landed in the U.S. 37 hours later, it was Feb. 5.
McGory traveled from his Wuhan apartment to the city’s airport and flew out of China on a cargo plane that was rigged with seats to transport passengers. It was one of two U.S. rescue planes that departed from Wuhan that day.
The plane first landed at Travis Air Force Base in northern California, where its passengers stayed on the runway for around five hours. Then the plane took off for Miramar, McGory said.
After McGory arrived at the Marine Air Station last week, he was shown to a small apartment that has a living space and a bedroom. He turned on a basketball game, plopped down in a chair and fell asleep in a matter of minutes, he said.
McGory’s first week at the Marine Air Station has trickled by. He can leave his apartment or relax in common areas. To pass the time, he ordered a bottle of wine from Amazon.com, but delivery was delayed a few days for security reasons because he’s on a military base.
He has talked to a few fellow travelers in person, but many keep to themselves out of fear that they could catch the virus from someone in quarantine and be forced to stay on the base even longer. A petition circulating in the quarantine facility calls for people to be isolated in their rooms until the quarantine is over, McGory said.
“Some people (in quarantine) are trying to require that,” he said. “We don’t need to go to those draconian measures or do those kinds of things.”
The government gave each of the temporary residents an iPhone and is providing them with cooked meals and washing their clothes.
McGory said he is writing a book about his escape from Wuhan and has completed 60 pages.
McGory said he worries about friends and students who remain. He also left behind money that he had earned while teaching. Figuring out how to transfer that from his bank in China is “a problem for another day,” he said.
When his time in quarantine is up, McGory will visit relatives who live just minutes from the military base.
He plans to return to Columbus in early March, and he joked that, being Irish, he looks forward to celebrating St. Patrick’s Day with friends.
“It has been emotional,” McGory said. “When it’s all said and done, that’s going to be interesting. How do you slowly get back into some sane frame of mind?”