JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The airport brings people from all over the globe together, and that means worries about the coronavirus are visible.
Passengers can be seen wearing face masks in an effort to not spread germs.
“You know, you can never be safe, especially in an international airport,” traveler Sky Johnson told News4Jax. “Everybody’s wearing the same thing because they want to protect themselves and their families when they get home.”
Another traveler at Jacksonville International Airport said they saw lots of face masks at the larger JFK airport in New York City.
Maxine Dallison just came down from Canada for a cruise and admitted she's concerned about being around so many people because she has health issues with her lungs.
“But we just figured what is going to be is going to be,” she said. “If we worry over it, it’s going to ruin our holiday.”
But passengers aren't the only ones concerned.
TSA has put out a directive that any passenger who is traveling into the U.S. from another country will be asked if they’ve been to mainland China in the past two weeks. If they have, they could be subject to up to a 14-day mandatory quarantine.
But there are only certain airports where travelers from China can enter directly, and Jacksonville is not one of them.
For now, JAX has added more hand sanitizing stations and janitorial staff are doing additional cleaning of spots they call “high touch areas” throughout the terminal.
From a business end, airlines are taking the biggest brunt of the economic impact.
On Wednesday, United Airlines and JetBlue were the first airlines to announce they would be cutting certain flights due to less demand. There’s no word on if any flights specifically in Jacksonville will be affected.