Editor’s note: This is the second story following eight local travelers who were quarantined when passengers on their cruise ship fell ill with coronavirus. We will continue to follow this story in the days ahead.
Late Tuesday night, Frank Keane and his wife, Deb, celebrated their return from an infectious black hole.
They clinked their martini glasses together, expressing their appreciation for what they have, the little things that everyone takes for granted. In this case, they were home, sitting at their bar, quarantined for two weeks, but home.
In Allenstown.
On Wednesday morning at the other end of the country, one of Keane’s traveling buddies, Dave Lewis of Concord, stuck a fork into rubbery scrambled eggs. He, too, expressed appreciation, for things he once had, saying on the phone, after his rubber and home fries, “A living nightmare. The perfect vacation.”
They set sail on the Grand Princess last month. Lewis and his wife, Judy, remain in the eye of the coronavirus storm, still waiting to come home after losing their freedom for 13 days and counting, this time quarantined at an air force base in San Diego.
The foundation of fear and confusion had occurred early last month, when 700 passengers on the cruise ship were diagnosed with the coronavirus, a strange new infection that has pushed all other news off the front page. The Diamond Princess was quarantined in Yokohama. Eight people died from the illness.
Now, there’s a cast of eight characters who star in their own vacation adventure each winter and have been for years, now ensnared in a unique snapshot of world history. Too bad it’s not a movie.
Home are Frank and Deb Keane, and Marcia and Bill Krueger of Concord. Still MIA are Dave and Judy Lewis, and Charlie and Rose Currier of Pembroke.
Weeks ago, they were living the high life on the high seas, eating, drinking, dancing, sightseeing on a four-day stop at Hawaii.
Now, it’s a story about trying to get home safely.
They’re retired professionals, others still working, in their 60s and 70s. And as things stand, in a story that changes by the hour, they’ve been split into two groups of four.
The Keanes and Kruegers flew home from Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta, Ga., arriving Tuesday night. The Lewises and the Curriers remain on a base on the West Coast, fenced in, quarantined in rooms normally reserved for visiting military families, hope and hopelessness mixing in their thoughts in a cruel way.
“We have no idea how we ended up here,” Dave Lewis said. “No one will tell us. We’re not sure why we weren’t all sent to the same place, to make it easier to get home.”
Those are questions for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Or the federal government. Or local lawmakers.
Questions, questions, questions.
Eventually, there will be answers to these concerns, but half of our eight sources I reached say they remain in a black hole here as well. First, they disappeared from view. Now, information is scarce.
For example, once test kits had been dropped on board, courtesy of the Air National Guard, why were the results – 19 crew members, two passengers had tested positive for the coronavirus – first announced by Vice President Mike Pence on the TV news. Our travelers were watching.
“The captain was not happy,” said Keane, who heaped a steady amount of praise on the crew, not on those higher up, those in charge, like the CDC. “He is responsible and we hear the news from the vice president?”
Passengers were quarantined on board for a week, in small rooms. Then they were sandwiched onto a bus, nearly every seat taken. They waited there, in close contact, then were sent to military bases for more quarantine measures.
Keane said his son had contacted our congressional delegation recently, and, he said, that might have led to their trip home. On the bus in Marietta, while waiting for a ride to the airport, two New Yorkers and four people from Massachusetts were ordered off the bus at separate times.
Something about the states’ governors rescinding the orders, but the reasoning was unclear. That left the four locals on the bus, waiting for the worst.
“An older lady was crying when she was told she had to get off the bus,” Keane said. “I might have started crying too if I had been told that.”
They’re home.
Their four friends are not. They don’t know why they were sent to the West Coast, while a reservation with their friends in Georgia might have meant that long-awaited trip home.
Complicating matters, Charlie Currier got sick and had to go the hospital. Any chance they had of coming home during this recent time frame was lost. His wife, Rose, wasn’t going to leave him there. Nor were his friends.
“I told them when they called that we want to get out of here but we will not leave her behind,” Dave Lewis said. “When he gets clearance to fly, we will get out of here.”
Meanwhile, the other half of this group can empathize.
“We’re still quarantined for another 14 days,” Keane said. “But at least we’re home. If we want popcorn, we can make it. I can sit in my favorite chair.”