State Department reportedly overruled CDC to fly coronavirus-infected Americans home

Coronavirus flight.
(Image credit: GOH CHAI HIN/AFP via Getty Images)

Fourteen Americans who contracted coronavirus on a cruise ship in Japan were transported back to the U.S. against the wishes of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, The Washington Post reports.

A total of 328 Americans were quarantined on the Diamond Princess ship for weeks before test results showed 14 of them had the COVID-19 virus, the Post writes. The U.S. State Department had said no one with the infection would be allowed on a flight. But it fought with the CDC to transport the infected people, who weren't showing symptoms, back anyway on the same flight and separated from those not infected by a "plastic-lined enclosure," the Post writes. State eventually won, but the CDC reportedly refused to puts its name on the press release announcing the flight.

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Kathryn Krawczyk

Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.