The CDC stresses that the coronavirus is not spreading rapidly in the U.S. but it could happen.

As of tonight, 35 Americans in our country have tested positive for covid-19. The CDC breaks down those numbers: 18 of those were passengers on that cruise ship in japan, 3 were infected in Wuhan, and then brought to the U.S., 12 tested positive after arriving from China, and 2 were infected after having close contact with someone who traveled to Wuhan.

The state department says Americans who get sick in Asia can no longer expect to be repatriated to the U.S.

This comes as health officials in the United States are responding to revelations that the CDC did not want to fly the infected passengers on the same planes as non-infected people. But the state department did.

Amanj Habibie and his wife were visiting China in January. They were on lockdown as the virus broke and spread quickly in the country.

The State Department and U-S Embassy helped them leave on a government plane with other Americans two weeks ago and they ended up in quarantine in Omaha until their release Thursday.

"We knew the virus was taking place, but we never knew it would become this much of a problem and spread this much,” said Habibie.

The CDC says is not yet seeing the virus spread on a community scale in the u-s, yet but it's likely that it will happen.

“We're working with state, local and the health department to ready our public health workforce to respond to local cases and the possibility this outbreak could become a pandemic,” said the CDC.

Doctors expect all 11 of those people who tested positive will recover, but that could take weeks or months. They were all passengers on the cruise ship that was in quarantine in Japan.