US withdraws plan to house virus patients in Southern California city

A federal judge canceled a court hearing scheduled for Monday in a contentious case about the use of a facility in Costa Mesa, California, as an isolation site for coronavrius patients, after receiving a notice from the federal government to withdraw the Fairview Developmental Center from consideration.

In a court notice filed Friday, US District Judge Josephine Staton dissolved the temporary restraining order she placed previously that prohibited the federal and state governments from transporting a group of California coronavirus patients evacuated from the cruise ship Diamond Princess to the "un-used, state-owned building" until a court hearing is held.

The attorneys for the federal government said they decided not to move forward with the proposal, because the government "has no plans to use the Fairview Developmental Center, or any other facility in Costa Mesa, to house individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19".

The federal government also said it has made other arrangements for the individuals proposed to be housed at Fairview.

In a statement Friday, the California Health and Human Services Agency said the federal government informed the state that the developmental center was no longer needed, because passengers testing positive for the coronavirus from the cruise ship, who would have been sent to Fairview, were at "the imminent end of [their] isolation".

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) previously estimated that as many as 50 percent of the passengers would test positive during the isolation period, but state officials said the actual number was substantially smaller than they expected, thus changing the need for isolation.

"The temporary restraining order prevented Fairview from being available at a time when it was critically needed," the statement added.

The city of Costa Mesa applied for a temporary restraining order on Feb 21 against federal and state agencies for what they described as a "flawed, unreasonable decision-making process that wrongly excluded county and local professionals and government leaders".

They contended that the federal and state government officials gave them short notice before deciding to move virus patients from Travis Air Force Base in Northern California to the Fairview Development Center, previously used to treat patients with mental health issues.

Defendants named by the city included: the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Department of Defense, the US Air Force, the CDC, the state of California, the Fairview Developmental Center, the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services, and the California Department of General Services.

The patients to be transported to the facility were California residents repatriated from the cruise ship, docked at Yokohama, Japan. According to court documents, some were sent to the Travis Air Force Base in Northern California, while others were taken to Lackland Air Force Base in Austin, Texas.

As of Feb 22, 156 evacuees remained at Travis; out of those, 67 were California residents.

"This is a victory for the citizens of Costa Mesa and Orange County, but the government has not promised not to place future infected persons there, so the battle is not over," said Costa Mesa Mayor Katrina Foley.