RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – After 37 hours flying, with four stopovers, the two aircraft that carried the group of 58 Brazilians and their families landed in Anápolis, Goiás, early Sunday morning. In this list are 34 people who lived in Chinese territory and 24 crew members who departed in two Brazilian Air Force (FAB) aircraft last Wednesday from Brasília to China.
According to the Ministry of Defense, by early Sunday morning all were asymptomatic and in good health. The two aircraft landed on the military air base at 6:06 AM and 6:12 AM (Brasília time), after a stopover for refueling in Fortaleza (Ceará).
The initial plan is for them to remain in isolation until February 26th at the Air Force transit hotel, an area within the air base itself prepared for them to remain in quarantine. Representatives of the rescue bodies consider the operation a success. “All passengers are in very good health, they are asymptomatic,” said General Manoel Luiz Narvaz Pafiadache, the Defense Ministry’s secretary of personnel, education, health and sports.
When landing on the rainy and cold morning of Anápolis (it was 18ºC), the passengers left the airplanes wearing masks and walked towards two buses. Two people waved to reporters and swung a Brazilian flag. All were examined throughout the day.
During one of the stopovers, between Wuhan and Anápolis, diplomat Germano Corrêa told EL PAÍS that the group was excited to return to Brazil, after spending some tense days in the country that has already recorded most of the 34,000 cases of the new coronavirus.
“[There is] a feeling of relief, everyone is very happy to be back in Brazil, particularly the children,” he said. There are 24 adults and seven children living in Wuhan and three diplomats who traveled to assist them. Corrêa is one of Itamaraty’s representatives on this trip.
The diplomat has been serving at the Brazilian Embassy in Beijing for two and a half years. He agreed to join the repatriation operation because he felt this was an unprecedented opportunity to help Brazilians who were already in enforced quarantine in China, where some 60 million residents of the Hubei province are facing restrictions on their circulation due to the spread of the disease.
When he decided to accept the mission, Corrêa told his family and reassured them. “Even before I boarded for Wuhan, many were afraid of the gravity of the epidemic, I believe because of the amount of false news about it in Brazil. I made it clear to everyone that the disease is not very lethal and mainly affects people with poor health and advanced age,” he explained.
According to the diplomat, some of the 34 residents of Wuhan said they would like to return to the Chinese city after the situation is normalized and the epidemic is contained. One of them is likely to be 28-year-old Vitor Neves Siqueira, a master’s degree student in linguistics. According to his father, retired civil servant José Siqueira Júnior, Vitor did not even want to come to Brazil.
“If it had been up to him, he would have stayed there waiting for the situation to normalize. He came because his sister persuaded him, I believe. I think he feared that his parents might suffer a heart attack,” he said.
A resident of Belo Horizonte (MG), the retiree is one of the few relatives of the repatriated who came to Anápolis to await their arrival in Brazil. He said he wanted to be close to his son, even though he would not be allowed personal contact with him, while in quarantine at the air base transit hotel. “I felt compelled to thank the people of Anápolis, the people of Goiás for welcoming my son and the other Brazilians,” he said.
In these nearly two weeks of anguish, with the initial uncertainty about whether or not the Bolsonaro government would collect the Brazilians, the retiree says he suffered in two seprate times.
The first was when he noticed that the disease was spreading rapidly. “I looked at his mother and we wouldn’t say it, but we felt that we could lose a son so young,” he said.
The second was when an advisor to the president minimized the importance and maximized the costs of rescuing Brazilians living in Wuhan. “He said there were 70, an insignificant number. It made me want to ask him if a daughter of his were there, would he think like that”.
The 24 crew members (including pilots, flight attendants, health professionals and journalists) were to be quarantined for 18 days as well. But the government said that since all those repatriated from China are asymptomatic, a review of this period may be possible regarding the crew.
In the isolation area, there are 38 suites with TV, beds and refrigerators. Those repatriated will have Internet access and video games. A toy room has been set up for the children and a bouncy castle has been installed. All will be examined at least three times a day and will have to transit through the isolation area wearing masks.
In case of any medical need, they will first be attended to inside the air base complex. If contamination is detected, an area of the Armed Forces Hospital in Brasília, 150 kilometers from Anápolis, will be reserved to receive these patients.