Dozens of cruise ship passengers quarantined at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield for the past two weeks were released Monday morning, officials with the Centers for Disease Control confirmed.
The CDC said about 140 American passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship that had been docked off the coast of Japan last month were expected to depart the base on buses reportedly headed for San Francisco International Airport.
About a dozen more people evacuated from the Diamond Princess will remain at Travis for various reasons, the CDC said.
The people leaving the base Monday never tested positive for the coronavirus and had to pass two tests in order to be released, the CDC said.
Betty Wu and her husband Bob got off the bus just minutes outside of Travis to make the drive home to Oregon.
"Ten hours on the road, but we couldn't see getting on a plane," Bob said.
Spencer Fahrenbacher of Canada was happy to just breathe fresh air after the two-week quarantine.
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"There were a lot of ups and downs," he said. "There were some days it felt like a vacation, and there were some days that were mentally exhausting."
It's the second wave of evacuated Americans to endure the two-week mandated quarantine at the base. On Feb. 20, three buses filled with evacuees from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus, left the base.
New cases of the coronavirus have emerged in the Bay Area, including a total of nine confirmed in Santa Clara County.
More than 60 countries around the world — including nine of the 10 biggest — have found coronavirus infections, with a global count of nearly 89,000 people affected by the illness, health officials said.
