Court blocks Trump administration’s attempt to send up to 50 evacuated American coronavirus patients to facility in Southern California amid fears it will ‘jump into the local population’
The mayor of Costa Mesa, California, says she was blindsided by a Trump administration plan to relocate 50 evacuated coronavirus patients
The US Dept. of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention wants to relocate the patients to an unused facility located in the city
Residents in the city and neighboring towns said they were shocked by the news and have protested against the move
Local officials secured an injunction from a federal judge blocking the decision because the plan lacked details on how the community would be protected
The patients were evacuated from the corona-virus hit Diamond Empress cruise ship in Japan to an Air Force Base, but were not sick enough to stay there
By RALPH R. ORTEGA
DAILYMAIL.COM
23 February 2020
A federal judge blocked a Trump administration plan to send 30 to 50 American coronavirus patients to a Southern California town after local officials complained they were blindsided by the decision.
The patients had been scheduled to arrive at a shuttered state facility in Costa Mesa on Sunday under a US Department of Health and Human Services and Centers for Disease Control plan that was blocked an by an injunction granted after concerns were raised.
Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley and other officials from surrounding Orange County are demanding more details on how the local community would be protected from the deadly outbreak.
The judge’s order stopped the federal plan, which would have relocated patients to the city of 110,000 residents from Travis Air Force Base, where they were evacuated to from the coronavirus-hit Diamond Empress cruise ship in Japan.
Three passengers have died and fears are mounting for hundreds of tourists left aboard.
‘We were shocked to know this is happening. My wife’s been crying all day,’ William Hart, who lives in nearby Santa Ana told KCBS.
U.S. District Judge Josephine L. Stanton has scheduled a hearing for Monday to address the issue brewing in Costa Mesa.
City officials quickly sought court intervention after learning from the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services that US officials planned to start moving patients to the shuttered Fairview Developmental Center.
They said in court documents that local officials were not included in the planning effort and wanted to know why the state facility was chosen for the continued quarantine.
Fairview, a now-closed 118-acre property, originally opened in 1959 and housed about 2,700 people with developmental disabilities on a sprawling campus with 60 buildings.
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