UGA student stranded in South America because of coronavirus

A University of Georgia student is among the medical students from the US stranded in Peru: Aya Ansour says the President of Peru declared a state of emergency and ordered all foreigners out of the country, but she says she and the other Americans weren't able to catch a flight. 

From WSB TV…

Mansour, in Peru with students from Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina, wants out now. They have eggs, pasta and Oreo cookies to last a week, they said in calls Tuesday and Wednesday. “We have a lot of junk food,” said Erica West, 25, a student from Augusta University who is studying to be a physician assistant. “We are all in a safe situation now, but we don’t know how long that will last.”

They started getting nervous Friday when the hospitals where they do clinical rotations began to bar their access. Then, on Sunday, they heard that a U.S. airline was ending service. They started booking travel home, but it was too late. That evening, President Martín Vizcarra announced the borders would be closing at 11:59 p.m. Monday.

Monday morning, they piled into taxis and drove a half-hour to the nearest American consulate, only to find a note taped to the door: closed. It included an emergency phone number, but the number was incorrect, said Mansour, 22, a UGA senior majoring in health promotion. They eventually found the correct number but couldn’t get through as of Wednesday afternoon. They are in frequent contact with their families and the universities and said everyone is working to get them home, calling members of Congress, the governor’s office, the embassy.

The University of Georgia, Augusta University and other academic institutions are working with the State Department to get them home, university spokesmen said.

On the website for the U.S. Embassy in Peru Wednesday was a statement that Americans in the country should arrange lodging "for the duration of the quarantine period."

Meanwhile, the students are hunkered down in their dorms over a clinic in Cusco. They aren’t allowed in the streets unless it’s for groceries or medical care, and they are running low on cash. They feel secure but would feel better if they were in the United States, with a familiar health system, said Nurin Ghazzawi, 26, another Augusta University student.

“If this pandemic spreads like wildfire,” she said, “how are we to get home safely?”