The Trump State Department overrode the advice of the Centers for Disease Control and put American citizens infected with the coronavirus on a plane full of healthy people, despite the risk that they could spread the infection.

The Washington Post reports that the CDC wanted to keep 14 coronavirus-infected Americans in Japan instead of flying them home because they could infect healthy people.

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However, the State Department believed it could bring the infected Americans home by quarantining them on the plane with a plastic-aligned enclosure.

“It was like the worst nightmare,” said a senior U.S. official who was involved with the decision. “Quite frankly, the alternative could have been pulling grandma out in the pouring rain, and that would have been bad, too.”