One of the U.S. State Department's evacuation planes was loaded with 328 Americans on Monday when new lab results came back showing that 14 of the passengers had tested positive for the coronavirus. The CDC's principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, recommended that the 14 passengers be taken off the plane and receive medical attention in Japan. But Trump officials like Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response at HHS, disagreed with the CDC, according to the Washington Post.
Kadlec, who previously worked as a special assistant to
President George W. Bush and serves as a member of the Trump regime's coronavirus task force, reportedly argued that the planes that had been chartered by the government contained seats which could be cordoned off for any infected passengers. This news wasn't shared with the other healthy passengers on the flight, many of whom only learned about flying with infected passengers after they landed in the U.S. and saw news reports.