Coronavirus cancels vacation, Bay Area family now in self-quarantine

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ByChris Nguyen KGO logo
Friday, February 7, 2020
Coronavirus cancels vacation, Bay Area family now in self-quarantine
A Bay Area family flew all the way to Southeast Asia for what some would call a trip of a lifetime, only to turn around and come back to the US once they realized the severity of the novel coronavirus.

A Bay Area family flew all the way to Southeast Asia for what some would call a trip of a lifetime, only to turn around and come back to the US once they realized the severity of the novel coronavirus.

They're now taking proactive measures to keep others from getting sick, even though they have yet to become ill.

"We just felt like we could've been exposed to it... we're not sure," said Gail Yip, who lives on the Peninsula and was traveling to Singapore for the start of a Celebrity cruise, as cases of the coronavirus grew exponentially in China.

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However, as Yip touched down, she and her travel mates knew they'd have a tough call to make - Either board the ship for a two-week excursion that was scheduled to dock in multiple Asian countries or to instead return home. They close the latter.

"We planned it a year ago, and so there were going to be 16 of us, and we met beforehand, talking about the cruise and we were all getting excited," said Yip.

Out of an abundance of caution, Yip and her family have voluntarily decided to quarantine themselves for two weeks, even though they're not sick and haven't shown any symptoms.

"It's the better thing to do for us," Yip said. "That's the decision we all made."

As for the cruise, it turns out they may have made the right choice. The family has since learned the ship they were slated to be on, has been denied entry at multiple ports over the past week.

See more stories related to coronavirus here.

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