TOPEKA— While many are familiar with the news of travelers stranded on the Diamond Princess Cruise ship due to coronavirus, most have not heard the work Kansas health officials and others did to get residents from Kansas home this week and into quarantine.
According to KDHE Secretary Dr. Lee Norman, officials in Kansas were sensitive to the fact that these vacationers had been caught off-guard while on their cruise holiday when the ship was forced to idle off the California coast because of coronavirus cases aboard.
Officials with U.S. Health and Human Services and the State Department notified authorities in Kansas. "We decided we wanted to help these ten travelers from seven households in five different counties in Kansas get home," said Norman.
A State Department aircraft flew the ten home. When they arrived at Kansas City International and Eisenhower Airport in Wichita, staff from the KDHE wearing protective clothing were there to greet them and escort them to their cars.
The Kansas Highway Patrol assisted so that they were able to drive safely to their homes, according to Norman. "We had ten exhausted, frustrated and now very happy travelers safely home."
The KDHE also worked with their neighbors to make sure the travelers had groceries and other supplies necessary when they arrived. "It was a very happy outcome to a very difficult situation."
The travelers remain under mandatory quarantine but none of them are ill, according to Norman.