Cruise ships, detention centers, seaside resorts, and motels: Photos show how travelers are being quarantined due to the coronavirus
The city of Wuhan, where the outbreak originated, has turned into a ghost town.
Wuhan has been quarantined since January 23. All of the city's public transportation — including buses, metros, and ferries — has been halted. Trains and airplanes coming into and out of the city are also shut down, and roadblocks were installed to keep taxis and private cars from exiting.
Wuhan's 11 million residents were told not to leave the city, barring special circumstances. People there have been forced to stockpile food and many of the streets are deserted.
Other parts of the Hubei province are eerily empty as well.
China has imposed travel restrictions on at least 16 cities in the Hubei province, including Wuhan.
Huanggang, a city of about 7.5 million people, placed its urban core under lockdown on January 23, closing subway and train stations as well as theaters and internet cafés. Many additional cities followed suit with their own travel restrictions.
The US is quarantining hundreds of citizens on military bases.
As of February 2, US citizens returning home who have been in the Hubei province within the past 14 days can be quarantined for up to two weeks.
On January 29, a flight carrying nearly 200 Americans from Wuhan landed at the March Air Reserve Base in Riverside, California. The passengers have been placed under a 14-day quarantine in the base's living quarters.
On Wednesday, another set of roughly 350 evacuees arrived in the US. They are being quarantined at two California military bases: the Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield and the Miramar Marine Corps Air Station in San Diego.
Of the 167 passengers who landed in San Diego, four were transported to local hospitals after showing symptoms of the virus, the CDC said.
A flight carrying additional passengers from Wuhan took off on Wednesday, headed for the Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. A fourth flight will carry evacuees to the Eppley Airfield in Omaha, Nebraska.
Italy is keeping people at a military base in Rome.
A plane evacuated 56 Italian nationals — including six children — from Wuhan on February 2, then landed in Rome the following morning. One passenger was prohibited from boarding after showing signs of a fever. A handful of other Italian nationals chose not to board, The Local reported.
The evacuees are being held at the Cecchignola military base in southern Rome.
Canada plans to quarantine people in a motel, where they'll receive mental-health services.
Around 211 Canadians are scheduled to leave Wuhan on Thursday, according to Canada's foreign affairs minister, François-Philippe Champagne. Their trip was delayed by a day due to inclement weather.
Passengers will be quarantined at the Yukon Lodge, a motel that has 290 rooms and is located on an air force base in Trenton, Ontario.
Canada's federal health minister, Patty Hajdu, told The Canadian Press that the government will offer mental-health services for those under quarantine.
UK evacuees are being quarantined at a hospital in northwest England, near Liverpool.
Last week, 83 British citizens were evacuated from Wuhan and flown to Oxfordshire, England. The plane was supposed to hold 120, but some people missed the flight over confusion about who could board and how they would get to the airport given the transportation ban in Wuhan.
The passengers were quarantined at the Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral shortly after landing. None of them have tested positive for the virus so far.
A second flight carrying 11 British citizens arrived this week. The passengers weren't told that an infected patient was on board.
The citizens were flown from Wuhan on a French-chartered flight with evacuees from 30 countries. One patient on the flight, a Belgian national, tested positive for the virus, but British passengers weren't informed, The Guardian reported.
The passengers are also being quarantined at the Arrowe Park Hospital.
Around 180 French passengers are being held at a seaside resort with volleyball courts, art classes, and a concierge service.
The passengers are under quarantine at the Vacanciel Holiday Resort in Carry-Le-Rouet, near Marseille. Agence France-Presse reported that the passengers consist mostly of French nationals and their Chinese spouses.
"There are worse places," Marc Ziltman, a senior Red Cross official at the resort, told AFP. "The site needs to be as agreeable as possible because people are going to pass 14 days there."
Around 3,600 passengers and crew members are trapped on the World Dream cruise ship at a port in Hong Kong.
The Dream Cruises line learned on Monday that the ship had previously carried eight infected passengers, who tested positive for the coronavirus after they disembarked on January 24.
The ship has sailed four times since then, and some passengers on those subsequent trips might have been onboard at the same time as the sick passengers, the South China Morning Post reported. On Tuesday, the ship's crew sealed off the cabins that previously held the infected passengers.
Now, 3,600 people are being quarantined on the ship at a port in Hong Kong. The passengers hail from multiple countries, including the UK, Australia, and Canada.
For now, the ship has enough food and face masks for all the passengers and crew.
"According to our records, there are nine infants under the age of 2 on board and our crew has been in contact with their accompanying family members to assist in any way to provide supplies," Dream Cruises told the South China Morning Post. "We have also aided in the delivery of required medication for several passengers."
But one passenger told the SCMP that some travelers' medication is running out.
As of Wednesday night, 33 crew members on board had developed "upper respiratory tract infection symptoms," and three were sent to the hospital, according to Hong Kong's health department.
More than 300 Bangladeshi nationals were evacuated from Wuhan on February 1. They were transported to a facility for Muslim pilgrims in Dhaka.
The facility normally hosts Muslim people traveling for the Hajj.
Most of the evacuees — a group that includes students and PhD researchers — were taken straight to the facility and quarantined. Eight were checked in to a hospital after developing high temperatures.
At least four Bangladeshi nationals were not allowed to board the flight after displaying fevers. Another 20 medical students chose not to board, New Age reported.
Indian nationals are playing games inside a quarantine facility in New Delhi.
India evacuated around 325 nationals from Wuhan on a flight that landed in Delhi on February 1. The male passengers were sent to a quarantine camp managed by the armed forces. Families and female passengers were sent to a separate camp managed by the Indo-Tibetan Border Police, The Hindu reported.
At the latter camp, evacuees have been playing the game carrom to pass the time.
Indonesia evacuated more than 230 students from Wuhan. They're quarantined on a remote island.
The evacuees include 238 students and five officials from the Indonesian embassy. They're being held at an air force base in Natuna, off the northwest coast of Borneo.
At a press conference on Thursday, the nation's director for communicable diseases, Windra Waworuntu, said doctors will monitor the health of the quarantined citizens. If they don't present symptoms, she added, there might not be a reason to test them for the virus.
"If they are not well, feverish, coughing, and sneezing, then we will swab," Waworuntu said. "If they are fine, why should we swab?"
Around 36 Algerian nationals, mostly students, are being quarantined in a hotel.
A flight carrying the citizens took off from Wuhan on Sunday. It also carried Tunisian nationals and students from Libya and Mauritania.
Reuters identified that Algiers hotel as the Rais Hotel.
The current price for a one-night stay there is around $70, according to Tripadvisor.
Rais Hotel employees are wearing face masks to lower their chances of catching the virus.
No cases of the coronavirus have been reported in Algeria.
Thousands of people have been quarantined on a Japanese cruise liner after 21 passengers tested positive for the coronavirus.
The cruise ship, known as the Diamond Princess, is being quarantined near Tokyo. As of Wednesday, there were 2,666 guests and 1,045 crew members on board.
Passengers have been ordered to stay inside their cabins.
Many of the cheaper rooms don't have windows or balconies. Passengers with balconies have been leaning across them to talk to fellow travelers, The Japan Times reported.
The ship's restaurants and cafes are closed, so passengers are receiving room service.
The ship's auditorium and casino are closed as well. Passengers have tweeted photos of their meals, which include boiled eggs, fruit, and cereal for breakfast and bread and ham for lunch.
"Cruise lines take public health issues very seriously — I've actually been quarantined myself on Diamond Princess in Japan," Liz Jarvis, editor of Cruise International Magazine, told Business Insider, referring to a time when she fell ill. "I know that passenger safety is absolutely paramount to all the team on board, and they act very swiftly in the event of any suspected issue."
Japan is also chartering a ferry to hold people suspected of carrying the coronavirus.
The country has reported 45 cases of the virus so far. Japan chartered the ferry, known as the Hakuo, on Wednesday, but no sick or potentially ill people have boarded it yet. The ship has a maximum capacity of 500 passengers, but Reuters reported that only 94 people are expected to board.
The people who eventually get quarantined on that ferry will have access to WiFi and a tablet computer, a Japanese defense official told Reuters.
Like the passengers on the Diamond Princess, Hakuo passengers will receive their meals via room service. They'll also be provided with toiletries.
Once the quarantine begins, the passengers are expected to stay in their cabins for around 10 days.
In Australia, 270 citizens and permanent residents were taken to an immigration detention center on Christmas Island.
The center was built in 2006 and held asylum seekers until its closure in September 2018.
In February 2019, the Australian government announced that the camp would reopen; four people had been detained there as of October.
Now, passengers from Wuhan are being quarantined there for 14 days, with only two people from a family allowed in each room. The rooms come with bunk beds and a desk, but evacuees must share showers and toilets.
One Australian evacuee, David Huang, told The New York Times that the WiFi was shaky and the food was "uninspiring and mushy."
Huang, a 22-year-old student from Sydney, added that "travelers had found dead moths in their beds and dead cockroaches on the floors, and spent much of their first night in the center cleaning," the Times reported.
But Huang also said the meals come with fruit and vegetables and evacuees have access to Xbox 360 devices. The facility also provided evacuees with soap, cigarettes, sunscreen, shorts, and sandals.
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