Hundreds more people evacuated from the virus zone in China began arriving Friday at military bases across the U.S. to begin a two-week quarantine.
U.S. officials said at a news conference in Washington on Friday that more than 800 people have been brought to the United States from Wuhan on recent flights.
The latest flights landed in San Antonio and San Diego on Friday. Another plane from the Wuhan region of China, the center of the outbreak of the new coronavirus, was also due to arrive in Omaha, Nebraska.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that it was unlikely that arriving patients would show symptoms.
"It's actually very unlikely that on the flight that lands here, there will be somebody with active signs of illness," said Dr. Jennifer McQuiston, deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control's division of high consequence pathogens and pathology.
Earlier evacuation flights to California have brought people to March Air Reserve Base in Southern California and Travis Air Force Base between San Francisco and Sacramento.
Evacuees will be quarantined for 14 days and monitored closely for any signs of illness. Anyone who shows signs of illness would be brought to a hospital for treatment and isolation.
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The new virus is in the coronavirus family that includes Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, and severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. It causes fever, cough, shortness of breath and, in severe cases, pneumonia. It has sickened more than 20,000 people and killed nearly 500, virtually all in China.
Associated Press writer Paul Weber in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report.
