The Flight Evacuation Mission for COVID-19 from Wuhan, China to Tokyo, Japan from 28 January to 17 February 2020

抄録

Though multiple countries reported their evacuation missions to repatriate their citizens with this emergence of COVID-19 from China in early phase, a paucity of data existed on how operationally to optimally execute an evacuation with balancing the risk of transmission during the flight, while avoiding the spread to their home countries. We described the collective findings of the flight evacuation mission from Wuhan, China to Tokyo Japan from 28 January to17 February, 2020. The evacuation team established the evacuation processing flow, including focused health questionnaire, temperature monitoring, ticketing and check-in, and boarding procedure planning. Evacuees were seated according to pre-planned zones. Additionally, to facilitate triage of the evacuees for the medical needs, we conducted in-flight quarantine to determine the disposition of the evacuees. All evacuees, regardless of their health condition, were required to perform rigorous hand hygiene frequently, and to wear surgical masks throughout the flight. We implemented strict infection prevention and control throughout the mission including in-flight quarantine. The pre-planned protocol and vigilant observation during the flights were crucial elements of this mission. Our experience is of value to develop to more refined plan for the next outbreak.