Americans in China struggle for seats as plane evacuates hundreds from besieged Wuhan

A plane evacuating 201 Americans from the Chinese city at the center of the coronavirus outbreak arrived in Alaska and continued Wednesday on to Southern California after everyone aboard passed a health screening test in Anchorage, where the aircraft had stopped to refuel.

The plane was the only way out of the besieged city of Wuhan in Hubei province, and Americans clamored for seats.

A couple with a seven-year-old daughter did not receive the coveted call. A 65-year-old man's phone rang, but he gave up his spot because others needed it more.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to who was tapped by U.S. officials to board the flight early Wednesday morning whisking them away from Wuhan, the epicenter of a respiratory virus outbreak that has killed more than 100 people in the last two months.

For a week, Wuhan has been under lockdown, with no transportation out of the city, as Chinese officials desperately try to keep the novel coronavirus from spreading.

The inland city of 11 million, a university and business hub often called the Chicago of China, has become a cauldron of fear, stress and boredom, with overwhelmed hospitals, empty streets and isolated residents afraid to be in the same room with close friends.

[Jetliner with American evacuees flying from China departs Anchorage after all passengers passed virus screening]

It is unclear how deadly the virus is or how easily it spreads. Most reported cases have occurred in Wuhan and surrounding Hubei province, and most patients elsewhere had recently traveled there.

But the tally of fatalities and confirmed cases, as well as the virus' geographic reach, has increased daily, prompting the U.S. State Department to recommend that Americans avoid traveling to China. Some airlines have begun restricting flights out of the entire country, not just Wuhan.

For expatriates in Wuhan, many of whom teach English at universities and language institutes, the crisis is especially disorienting.

Many are not fluent in Chinese and worry about communicating if they go to the hospital. They share anxieties and questions with each other on WeChat and Facebook forums. On Wednesday, one man posted that he lost his temper at a Walmart cashier who rummaged through a quilt he had just bought, potentially spreading germs.

Americans still stuck in Wuhan have received no word about any future government-sponsored flights. Some are angry at U.S. officials for not doing more to help.

State Department officials could not be reached for comment.

"I'm anxious, to put it lightly. There's a mixture of fear and anger," said Jacob Wilson, 33, a Louisiana native who runs a tech startup in Wuhan. "It's not like I'm trying to drag the embassy through the mud, but people are dying in Wuhan and getting sick."

In addition to consular officials being evacuated by the State Department, the plane that took off Wednesday had room for a number of others, for a total more than 200 passengers. It stopped for refueling in Alaska before heading to March Air Reserve Base in Riverside County. The passengers were isolated from the crew through the entire flight, officials said. According to officials, everyone aboard passed a health screening test in Anchorage.

[Can the coronavirus be contained? Unknowns complicate response.]

Officials from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sought to reassure Americans that passengers on the flight would not pose any danger. The Wuhan returnees were screened for symptoms of the virus before boarding, in Alaska, during the flight and yet again at the Riverside air base, the CDC said in a news release. They will also be monitored post-arrival and initially housed in California

A photograph from the air base showed rows of cots apparently ready for people undergoing medical evaluations.

Wilson, the startup owner, did not get a seat on the plane. But unlike many expatriates, he owns a car. He spread the word on social media that he was available for rides to the airport.

His first passenger was a young woman with special medical needs apart from the virus. They stopped to pick up another woman and her eight-year-old daughter.

The lockdown includes restrictions on private cars in the city. Wilson hoped his license plate number had been logged with authorities as a car taking Americans to the airport.

The Today show broadcast a video of the girl in a surgical mask saying from the backseat of Wilson's car: "We're going to the U.S."

Her mother, Priscilla Dickey, said, "Yeah, to see your Nanna and your Poppa."

Wilson said he later returned to the airport to take the mother and daughter back home. The girl's passport was with her father in another city, and she was not allowed to board the plane, according to Wilson, who moderates a Wuhan American expat group on WeChat with about 180 members.

Some other children booked on the flight were also turned away because of issues with travel documents, Wilson said. He will make another run to the airport soon to get a British citizen out of the country.

Wilson broke down in tears as he described an elderly woman barred from entering a Walmart because an employee determined she had a fever. He worried that she would starve.

Christopher Suzanne is one of the lucky Americans who escaped Wuhan. He had already booked a Jan. 22 flight for his infant son to be baptized in Albany, N.Y.

In the weeks before the trip, the baby was hospitalized in Wuhan for a serious illness that included fever and respiratory problems. When Suzanne asked if his son had the coronavirus, the doctor pretended she did not speak English, he said.

The boy recovered, and the family left on one of the last flights out of the city.

"I feel almost guilty that I'm not in Wuhan," Suzanne said. "All my friends that I lived with and worked with, I'm watching them panic."

John McGory, 65, said he gave up his seat on the government flight because he could survive the siege better than families with children. He suspects he was offered a place because he had been interviewed by U.S. media outlets.

McGory moved to Wuhan six years ago to teach English and experience life in another country. He was just about to return home to Ohio and was busy with goodbye dinners and packing when the city went on lockdown.

Now, he does not know when he will leave. His university housing is free, and he hopes he has enough money for food for the long haul.

He takes daily walks on the deserted school campus, blogs about the experience and is adding a chapter about the quarantine to a book he is writing, after recently publishing a book about learning English as a second language.

With widespread paranoia in Wuhan about face-to-face contact, McGory's social life is mostly limited to social media. People have been sharing videos of amusing pastimes, including a man attempting to hook a fish from an indoor fish tank and women playing mahjong with plastic bags covering their entire faces.

When McGory invited a friend over for a drink, joking that scotch kills all germs, the friend's wife nixed the plan.

He plans to get some charcoal from Walmart and have a cookout, with guests wearing surgical masks and keeping a safe distance from one another. But he fears no one will show up.

"They'll probably hide in their rooms and think the worst thoughts," McGory said. "You can't live like that forever."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.