At Palm Beach International Airport, you will find Kayla Cooper taking extra precautions to keep her kids healthy.
“Pretty much just keeping everything clean,” she said. “We brought a ton of wipes. We brought antibacterial spray.”
The coronavirus is a respiratory disease that can cause pneumonia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it was recently discovered in China.
Now U.S. health officials are screening passengers from parts of Asia at several major airports in the United States.
“It’s shocking what it can do but it seems like they’re trying to pay attention to it,” one traveler said.
While there are no non-stop services from China to Palm Beach International Airport, officials at PBI said they are monitoring the situation.
Over at Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, Dr. Iyesha Hussein says it’s something they’re monitoring too.
“We’re just being hyper-vigilant, we’re educating our entire team of physicians, our nurses,” Hussein said.
She said the coronavirus mimics the flu and warns it could be especially dangerous for seniors and children
“If somebody coughs or sneezes these droplets are contagious essentially,” Hussein said. “We want to protect ourselves."
Hussein says it’s not a bad idea to wear a face mask on the plane if you are traveling.
