Quarantined Irving newlyweds Tyler and Rachel Torres finally thought they’d make it home Monday, but now it is unclear when their nightmare honeymoon will ever end.
The couple found themselves still stuck at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio even after the federal quarantine ended at midnight.
"We are doing good but disappointed,” Tyler Torres said.
“Hanging in there,” Rachel Torres added.
The couple’s dream honeymoon was a dream cruise on the Diamond Princess, but it turned into a nightmare when some passengers were infected with the coronavirus and the ship was quarantined.
They said federal officials from the Centers for Disease Control told them after 27 days and with no signs of them being sick, they and others were free to leave the military base.
"Technically we can walk off if we want and go and chance it on our own,” Tyler Torres said.
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But they said they were told if they do leave the military base, the state of Texas could forcibly detain them.
"We at Lackland aren't allowed into San Antonio, to travel through San Antonio, or anything to do with San Antonio and they are allowed to do whatever means necessary to keep us out and that includes re-quarantining us,” he said.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other local officials were angered that the CDC freed one man who later tested positive for Coronavirus and had to be re-quarantined.
They demanded the federal government institute more stringent testing requirements, and the two sides were “negotiating,” the Torres’s said they were told.
So the couple said they felt like they were being held hostage – not by the CDC but by the state of Texas.
“Our current problem is the state of Texas has decided we’re a threat to the public health, which we firmly disagree with,” Rachel Torres said.
"It has been a total of 27 days today for us,” Tyler Torres said. “So I think we've had enough quarantine in our life."
Tyler Torres, a nurse at a Dallas hospital, said his employer agreed to pay him for the time he is in quarantine.
Rachel Torres, a recently-graduated occupational therapist, said she was supposed to start a new job – a week-and-a-half ago. Her new start date is unclear.
