Cruise ship couple arrives back in U.S. but is ushered into second quarantine

The Ewa Beach couple on a cruise ship in Japan struck by an outbreak of the new coronavirus has finally left the ship and reached the United States, but their troubles aren’t over yet.

Debbie Pagan, 58, and husband Eric, 64, were two of at least six Hawaii residents and nearly 400 U.S. citizens who began a two-week cruise Jan. 20 from Yokohama, Japan, aboard the Diamond Princess.

But on Feb. 4, instead of returning to Yokohama and leaving the ship, the 3,700 passengers and crew members began a 14-day quarantine after learning someone aboard tested positive for the coronavirus, or COVID-19.

And on Saturday evening, four days before the quarantine was set to end, Debbie Pagan and the hundreds of other U.S. citizens learned that they would have to begin another two-week quarantine on a military base in either California or Texas.

“I could feel this, the feeling of suffocating. … At first I was in shock, then I was so disappointed,” Pagan said Sunday. “We were counting down the days.”

The Pagans arrived at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield, Calif. around 11:30 p.m. Sunday night after what Pagan called a “nightmare” of a trip that included six hours to get from the ship to Haneda Airport, a nine-hour charter flight to Fairfield and another four hours to arrive at Westwind Inn, an on-base hotel where it appears they will spend the next two weeks.

Some of the problems Pagan mentioned are things any traveler might encounter on a particularly bad trip — missing luggage, hours of waiting and less-than-ideal bathroom situations — and while they try to keep their spirits up, it came on the heels of learning that they would have to endure a second quarantine away from home.

“When we get back to Hawaii, please don’t quarantine us. Everyone has their breaking point,” she said, laughing.

While waiting for what became five hours on a bus from the Diamond Princess to the airport, Pagan said, a passenger had an anxiety attack and had to be assisted.

It is possible that the Pagans were flying with Americans who had tested positive for the coronavirus. A total of 454 passengers on the Diamond Princess had contracted the coronavirus as of Monday.

While the planes to the U.S. were aloft, the State Department and Department of Health and Human Services said 14 passengers who had been tested two or three days earlier had positive readings.

U.S. officials, it turned out, had started bringing the passengers home without actually knowing their test results. But because the evacuation had already begun by the time Japanese officials relayed those results, officials decided to let the infected evacuees, who were not yet exhibiting symptoms, board the planes and sit in the back, separated from other passengers by plastic sheets about 10 feet tall.

An email to passengers Sunday from the U.S. Embassy Tokyo said, “Health authorities will screen all passengers prior to allowing them to board the chartered flights. No symptomatic or infected passengers will be allowed to board.”

The Pagans have not shown any signs of having the virus, and Debbie Pagan said she was not aware that she may have been flying with someone who had tested positive until she received a text about it when the plane landed.

“My husband said there was an opening by the tarp in front of us. … He looked through the gap, and he said that he could see four people there,” she said. “The tarp had just blocked off us from whoever was on the other side.”

After a few hours of getting some of their belongings, room keys and food, at around 3:30 a.m. local time, the couple arrived via bus at their two-bedroom unit at the Westwind Inn, where they could be spending their stateside two-week quarantine that Pagan was told started as soon as they landed.

While there, she said, they will get their temperatures taken twice a day and meals given to them. They received a warm welcome from the military and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when they stepped off the plane, but Pagan acknowledged that others could perceive them as sick regardless of their lack of symptoms.

“In their eyes it’s like we’re all infected,” she said, as if “it’s up to you to prove to us that you’ll be ready to go home in 14 days.”

Around noon Monday a military member who brought food and water asked Pagan to put a dining chair outside her front door where food can be placed to avoid any contact and being “contaminated.” Another put water bottles on their windowsill.

They were also instructed not to leave their units for the first 48 hours.

A chain link fence was put around the inn and a large, grassy yard area that the quarantined guests could use, so after those first 48 hours, Pagan and her husband will be able to enjoy the outdoors for the first time in over two weeks.

“It sounds like after 48 hours we’re free to roam around the area, and I told my husband I really miss my running,” she said.

Though her husband was against it, Pagan said she would run with a mask and not make contact with anyone.

Pagan and her husband are born-again Christians, and she has said over the last two weeks that her faith has been instrumental in getting through the quarantine and the sudden changes that it has brought along.

“I’ve got the Lord in my heart, and he knows every day, every day just be with him. Just trust him,” she said Monday. “We’re not going through this all by ourselves and scared.”

But Pagan said Sunday that she is looking forward to returning to Hawaii, getting back to her dog and her grandchildren, and having a “normal life.”

“I know that by walking into (my) living room, now it’s done,” she said. “It’s not that I miss my house, but that (I know) I’m done. All of this is done.”

The Associated Press and New York Times contributed to this report.