Evacuees from virus outbreak in China will fly to SFO.

U.S. removing staff, private citizens from coronavirus epicenter in China

The U.S. State Department said it plans to evacuate its staff and some private citizens out of the Chinese city of Wuhan — the epicenter of the growing coronavirus outbreak — on a flight to San Francisco on Tuesday.

“We anticipate that there will be limited capacity to transport private U.S. citizens on a reimbursable basis on a single flight leaving Wuhan Tianhe International Airport on January 28, 2020 and proceeding directly to San Francisco,” the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said in a statement Sunday.

Priority will be given to “individuals at greater risk” of contracting the virus, officials said.

Nonstop flights to SFO from Wuhan normally carry about 150 passengers, an SFO representative said.

Five people in the United States — two in Southern California and one each in Arizona, Washington state and Illinois — have been diagnosed with the respiratory virus that has killed 80 people and sickened at least 2,744. Symptoms include mild to severe respiratory illness, including fever, cough and difficulty breathing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While there have been no cases confirmed in the Bay Area, health officials in Alameda County were testing fewer than 10 people for the potentially deadly illness. The department had no new information to report Sunday, a spokeswoman said.

The CDC confirmed a traveler from Wuhan tested positive for the virus in Southern California, the Orange County Health Care Agency announced late Saturday. The patient, a man in his 50s, is in isolation at a hospital and in good condition, the agency said.

Los Angeles public health officials said Sunday that a person diagnosed and hospitalized there also was a traveler

from Wuhan.

The CDC has been screening airplane travelers arriving from Wuhan at five international airports in the United States: San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago’s O’Hare and New York’s John F. Kennedy.

A spokesman for SFO deferred questions to the CDC on Sunday. The CDC could not be reached for comment early Sunday.