“It’s important that we take measures like this to care for our most vulnerable residents,” Mayor London Breed said when she announced the program.
Wandering Ships
Nothing, however, drove home the need for quarantine spaces more than the arrival in California this week of a cruise ship bearing infected passengers and crew.
The Grand Princess docked at the Port of Oakland on Monday after days circling the waters off the Golden Gate, kept there by state and federal officials as they searched for a safe place to bring it ashore.
By Tuesday evening, more than 760 passengers had been bused to nearby Travis Air Force Base. Another 42 had been flown to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar near San Diego, while 124 went to Georgia’s Dobbins Air Reserve Base and 98 to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Lackland had already housed quarantined passengers from another infected ship -- the Diamond Princess.
As controlled environments, military bases make for good quarantines, said Nasia Safdar, a doctor who is director of infection prevention at the University of Wisconsin, Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. A successful quarantine tends to a patient’s meals, provides medicines or supplies -- and keeps the world at bay. Bases have the resources, not to mention the guards.
“This is a very high-risk scenario, inherently, and there’s a lot of logistical support needed, so a military environment helps,” Safdar said.
Grand Princess passengers showing mild signs of illness -- any illness -- were further separated, so they could be monitored while being tested. Up to 24 were taken to Asilomar State Beach near Monterey. Others went to a vacant hotel in San Carlos, just south of San Francisco, that can house 120 people. California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state had been searching for appropriate quarantine sites for a week and wanted more.
But in a sign of just how touchy quarantine decisions can be, Newsom took aim at Texas on Thursday over its stance on passengers from the Grand Princess. Only Texas residents are being accepted for quarantine at Lackland Air Force Base, a decision that San Antonio’s mayor explained on Facebook was made to avoid straining the hospitals.
“Folks in Georgia are doing more, and the people, of course the state of California have always done more,” Newsom said at a press conference. “That has not helped in our logistics, to be candid with you, but it is what it is.”
Representatives of the Texas Department of State Health Services and the office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott didn’t return requests for comment.
--With assistance from Susan Warren.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.