BELLINGHAM, Wash. — The state department maintains Americans should not travel to China over concerns about the coronavirus, now known as COVID-19.
A continued ban on travel is keeping a new family separated by thousands of miles. Chris Crnich, of Bellingham, is anxiously waiting to pick up his second adopted child from China.
“We’re excited to go over there and see him and bring him home," he said.
His first adopted child, Jade Cirnich, is waiting to meet her little brother.
“I’m most excited about getting him and seeing the zoo," said Jade Cirnich.
Their story started in 2014 when Chris and his wife Suzette flew from Bellingham to Bejing to adopt Jade, who is now 6 years old.
In October of last year, they were officially matched with their second child – Miles. Plans to pick him up earlier this month were canceled when the state department blocked all travel from the U.S. to China in an effort to stop the spread of coronavirus.
“With more cases every day, we just wonder, and hope, and pray that it’s going to end,” Chris Crnich said.
The virus has already killed more than 1,600 people and infected nearly 70,000.
In an effort to help the most vulnerable, the Northwest-based adoption agency Holt International has raised more than $55,000 to help protect the 600 children in their partner orphanage in Wuhan – a town at the center of the epidemic.
“We don’t know when. We just want to go over there and bring him home," Chris Crnich said.
