State Department Employee in Japan Ignored President Trump’s Orders, Allowed Americans with Coronavirus to Fly Back to the US
President Trump is furious with the State Department after it was found out that an employee ignored his orders and allowed Americans infected with the coronavirus to return to the U.S. from Japan.
The employee, Ian Brownlee decided that he was going to send them all back anyway on two separate airplanes.
The CDC did not want them returned on the same plane with those not infected with the disease, but Brownlee said it was safe because they were kept in an isolation area. The thing is nobody knows if the isolation area was even effective or not.
Dr. Walters rationalized his decision to override the President and the CDC and allow individuals sick with the coronavirus to return to the US:
It’s important to remember this was an emerging and unusual circumstance,’ said Ian Brownlee, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Consular Affairs.
‘We had 328 people on buses, a plan to execute and we received lab results on people who were otherwise asymptomatic, un-ill people on a bus on the way to the airport.
‘The people on the ground did exactly the right thing…in bringing them home.’
People who had tested positive were put into isolation units on board the two cargo planes, which then flew to Joint Base San Antonio – Lackland in Texas and Travis Air Base in California.
Although officials reassured the press that the sick passengers were thoroughly contained and every precaution had been taken to ensure the safety of the healthy people onboard, reports later emerged that people on the flights had no idea they were sharing yet another even more confined space with infected individuals.
When the planes landed at their respective destinations late Sunday night, six ‘high risk’ passengers from Lackland and seven from Travis were ushered onto an additional flight to Omaha Eppley Airfield in Nebraska.
Sources:
NY Post |