The Trump State Department overrode the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and put American citizens infected with the coronavirus on a plane full of healthy people, despite the risk that they could spread the infection.
The Washington Post reports that the CDC wanted to keep 14 coronavirus-infected Americans in Japan instead of flying them home because they could infect healthy people.
However, the State Department believed it could bring the infected Americans home by quarantining them on the plane with a plastic-aligned enclosure.
"It was like the worst nightmare," said a senior U.S. official who was involved with the decision. "Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too."