Americans under quarantine headed to Travis Air Force Base

Americans aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan — who have been stuck in a mandatory coronavirus quarantine — have been evacuated and will be held for 14 days at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, authorities said Sunday.

Nearly 380 Americans were aboard the cruise ship, which has been docked in Yokohama, Japan, since Feb. 3 with thousands of passengers aboard. As of Sunday, there were 355 cases of the virus, now labeled COVID-19 by health authorities, on board the Diamond Princess, which carries almost 2,700 passengers.

About 300 Americans were preparing to leave the ship Sunday night, according to the Japanese defense ministry, via charter flights arranged by the U.S. State Department.

The Northern California base has housed evacuees since Feb. 5. The new evacuees will be housed separately for their quarantine and will be monitored by personnel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Department of Health and Human Services.

Anybody showing signs of illness will be taken to an off-base facility, base officials said.

Americans aboard the ship, who have been confined to their cabins for almost two weeks as part of the quarantine, are being evacuated because they are at a high risk of exposure to the virus, according to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo.

Once arriving in the U.S., they will need to endure another two-week quarantine, meaning they will have been confined for almost four weeks.

Some Americans aboard the ship have said they won’t take the charter flights back to the U.S. because of the additional quarantine.

All passengers will be examined before they are allowed on the charter flights, and those who are showing symptoms or have tested positive for the virus won’t be allowed to leave, the embassy said.