Most of the evacuees from the Diamond Princess cruise ship were released Tuesday from their quarantine at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, a day after local officials sought to extend their confinement and have them retested for the coronavirus.

A total of 127 evacuees finally were allowed to head home, after about a month of confinement on the ship and in a hotel on the base. The city said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has overseen the quarantine at Lackland, had modified its protocols and provided a plan that satisfied local officials’ concerns about the departure.

Some evacuees were bused directly to San Antonio International Airport in small groups based on their flight times.

There, they were met by airport employees who assisted them with ticketing and bags and accompanied them through security. Others who live in Texas were taken on the same buses to the airport so they could arrange for car rentals.

Most of the group initially was scheduled to leave Monday, in accordance with their 14-day federal quarantine order. But they remained on base as they were caught up in a political battle between local officials, who argued the evacuees still could pose a health risk to the community, and federal officials, who said only those who had been medically cleared would be released.

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Mayor Ron Nirenberg said that before he and others intervened, the evacuees would have been “free to go wherever” as soon as they stepped off the base. While the city could not force the CDC to conduct further testing, he said, it did help coordinate a new plan for release that would limit their contact with the general public.

“We were able to improve the departure process with CDC,” Nirenberg said. “That release was coordinated and quick to minimize the risk of exposure. No passengers stayed in local public areas while waiting to depart.”

No further groups of evacuees are expected to be brought to San Antonio, Nirenberg said.

Those released do not pose a health risk to the community, CDC spokeswoman Carol Williams said.

Ten people among the 144 Diamond Princess passengers evacuated to Lackland ultimately tested positive for the coronavirus, including three who received positive results while in Japan and are waiting for confirmation from the CDC. One sick evacuee was transported out of state to be reunited with a spouse who was hospitalized elsewhere after also contracting the virus.

Of the 144 Americans who arrived at Lackland on Feb. 17 from the coronavirus-ridden cruise ship, seven still are under quarantine on the base due to close contact with someone with the virus, Nirenberg said. Their releases will be staggered according to their time of possible exposure.

On ExpressNews.com: A timeline of coronavirus news in San Antonio

Local officials’ frantic attempts to extend the Diamond Princess quarantine came on the heels of the erroneous release Saturday of an evacuee from Wuhan, China, who had been infected with the virus, COVID-19.

After being hospitalized for weeks, the woman had tested negative twice and appeared recovered, only for positive test results to arrive following her discharge from the Texas Center for Infectious Disease, a state hospital designated to treat coronavirus patients.

Before the mistake was realized, she stayed at the Holiday Inn Express near the airport and took a hotel shuttle to North Star Mall. After about 12 hours, she was being taken back to the hospital. It’s not clear whether she still was contagious during that period, but officials with the Metropolitan Health District say they have identified at least 21 people who could have been exposed to the virus.

Two San Antonio congressmen, Joaquin Castro and Lloyd Doggett, both Democrats, have called for an investigation of the bungled release, which they said “raises serious questions” about CDC oversight, protocols and attention to public safety, according to a letter the pair sent Monday to leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

The letter went on to more broadly question CDC’s handling of the two groups of evacuees from the cruise ship and Wuhan, including their transport into the community for testing and medical care, even when symptoms were mild. It asked why federal officials could not quarantine coronavirus patients at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio’s military hospital.

“Our community’s capacity to provide isolation rooms for the quarantined population is not unlimited and filling them up with people not in need of hospital-level care is an inappropriate use of these rooms,” the letter said.

On Tuesday, Texas Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, both Republicans, penned their own letter to Dr. Robert Redfield, head of the CDC, asking how a similar mix-up could be prevented with future coronavirus patients.

Redfield already had told Texas health officials Monday that new criteria had been established for medically clearing people who had been infected with the virus. Moving forward, previously symptomatic patients will be required to have two sequential negative tests within 24 hours, and no one will be released while tests are pending.

On ExpressNews.com: ‘Calm the panic’: With impending release of cruise ship evacuees, San Antonio health officials begin pivot to community coronavirus plan

The mayor and other local officials repeatedly have raised the same concerns to the CDC.

On Monday, Nirenberg declared a public health emergency and unsuccessfully sought a temporary restraining order in federal court to delay the evacuees’ release. He said the city used the tools at its disposal in an effort to protect the safety of the public, but also that of the evacuees themselves.

All was done to prevent the community spread of the virus that already has begun in other areas of the country, Nirenberg said.

In the last week, coronavirus cases have surfaced in more states, including New York, Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. Nine people in the U.S. have died, all in the Seattle area, which is grappling with a serious outbreak of the virus at a long-term-care facility.

“To date, we have zero community transmission in this city,” Nirenberg said. “We want to keep it that way.”

Still, on Tuesday Metro Health established a hotline, 210-207-5779, which can residents can call with concerns about the virus. The department is directing symptomatic residents to first call their primary care doctors, rather than showing up at hospitals or clinics.

For the time being, any samples collected from possibly infected patients will be sent to the CDC lab in Atlanta, as local testing isn’t yet available for the virus.

Lauren Caruba covers health care and medicine in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | lcaruba@express-news.net | Twitter: @LaurenCaruba