A Wisconsin man is one of thousands of people hoping that their family members will be among the Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China, amid the ongoing coronavirus epidemic.
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Sam Roth is currently in Wisconsin while his wife, Daisy, and two daughters, 5-year-old Abigail and 10-month-old Adalynn, are in Wuhan. The three of them traveled there for the Lunar New Year celebrations, he told CBS News.
"From the moment they stepped foot in Wuhan, they were told: 'Stay inside, don't get in big gatherings,' and then the city went on lockdown," Roth said.
More than 1,000 Americans were in Wuhan during the outbreak, and many scrambled to get out of the city that has become the epicenter of the outbreak. More than 6,000 cases have been confirmed in mainland China and at least 132 people have died.
Chinese officials have locked down Wuhan and other major cities to try to curb the outbreak, but Roth wants his family out.
"We've got a 10 month old, we've got a 5 year old. They're susceptible and they should be prioritized," Roth told CBS News of his family.
But seats were limited on a chartered State Department flight, which left Wuhan on Wednesday local time with 201 passengers on board, including American consulate staff and private U.S. citizens, CBS News reported. All passengers were screened for the virus before leaving China and again during a refueling stop in Anchorage, Alaska, officials said.
The charter flight is scheduled to land at March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County, California, Wednesday morning, and everyone on board will be quarantined and monitored for at least three days by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ABC News reported.
There are currently 110 patients under investigation for the virus in the U.S., and five confirmed cases in Illinois, California, Washington and Arizona, according to the CDC.
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