SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — A San Diego man is relieved to find out his wife and two young children are back in California after being evacuated from Wuhan, China. However, they did not make it onto a flight to MCAS Miramar and will spend their 14-day quarantine at Travis AFB in Northern California.
Ken Burnett sat glued to his cell phone in frustration Wednesday, hoping for any nugget of information from his wife, Yanjun Wei, about whether she and their 3-year-old son, Rowan, and 1-year-old daughter, Mia, were heading home.
Two planes landed Wednesday in California carrying passengers evacuated from the coronavirus zone in China. One flight landed at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif., and the another at MCAS Miramar.
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"'On the plane,' it was tough, and then 'do you know if you're coming here,' 'did you land?'" Burnett said reading off text messages between he and his wife. He knew his wife's plane had landed at Travis, but did not get a message for nearly seven hours until she was finally able to do a Facetime call.
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Burnett's family left for China in November to celebrate Chinese New Year with Wei's parents. But festivities were quickly canceled and the mother of two soon found herself stuck in China as the coronavirus outbreak worsened.
"They don't go outside at all," Burnett told 10News last month. "Her mom did venture out to try to get some supplies, some food, said the markets are empty of fresh vegetables and we got the last milk."
In Miarmar, there were roughly 170 passengers on board Wednesday's arrival. The CDC says the passengers were at a high risk of exposure when they were evacuated and screened before and during the flight, and after their arrival.
