WEBSTER GROVES, Mo. _ Ken Warren marches across his own front lawn, places two bags of groceries down on the concrete stoop, pushes the doorbell and retreats 25 feet.
Half a minute passes in silence. Did she hear? Warren, 76, cautiously approaches again and has to hustle back as it swings opens.
His wife, Tao Jiang Warren, 56, steps into the cold sunlight of Thursday afternoon, smiles and waves.
"Heyyy!" she says. "How are you? Aww, thank you, thank you!"
"There's bread pudding in there," he says, voice raised over the rush of traffic. "And there's ice cream and extra whipped cream."
Tao Warren has been alone and under quarantine at home for nearly two weeks after returning from visiting her father in China. Health officials imposed the precautionary measures on her when she returned to the United States on Feb. 7. She has not had any symptoms of coronavirus.
Ken Warren has stayed with friends and then moved into a rented apartment in the Central West End in the interim. He stops by every day with food to have a loud conversation with his bride of nine years. He says the mailman thinks they're just not getting along.
While it's unclear how long it could take for symptoms to develop after exposure to the virus, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates an incubation period of two to 14 days based on research into other coronaviruses.
Tao Warren's two-week quarantine ends Friday and she will be able to get back to her life, working out at the Mid-County Y in Brentwood and finally having her husband, a political scientist at St. Louis University, back at home.
"I'm going to take her out for a nice dinner," Ken Warren said.
There have been only 15 U.S. cases of coronavirus _ none in Missouri _ and no deaths. St. Louis County health officials said there were eight county residents who had returned from areas where exposure was possible and were cooperating with a two-week quarantine process. St. Louis health officials said there were fewer than five.
The flu was a much bigger concern in the area, with 411 confirmed cases in St. Louis County last week. The CDC said 14,000 people have died this year from the flu in the U.S.
Tao Warren left St. Louis on Jan. 14 and arrived on Jan. 16 in Changsha, a city of 7 million in the Hunan Province in the south central part of China. The city is about 200 miles from Wuhan, a city of 11 million that's considered ground zero of the virus outbreak. That's about the distance from Kansas City to St. Louis.
Most of the people infected with coronavirus had traveled to the Wuhan area, where the vast majority of the more than 2,100 deaths and 74,000 cases occurred in China.
Tao Warren had made a trip out the previous summer to mourn with her father the sudden death of her mother after a fall. They had been married for 60 years. Her father was still very sad months later, and she booked another trip to spend Chinese New Year with him and her brother, who lives in the same city.
When she left the U.S, it was not yet known that the virus could spread from person to person. Within days, the virus was recognized as a worldwide threat to public health.
She said her family had planned a trip to Hainan, a tropical island province in the South China Sea known for beach resorts. But they had to cancel the trip and several parties as people in Changsha took precautions to slow the spread of the virus.
"Now we couldn't do anything," she said. "Chinese New Year was ruined."
Back home, her husband was watching the headlines and getting more concerned.
"And I said, 'Tao, you need to get out of there,'" Ken Warren said. Her father, a medical doctor, agreed. A flight out of Changsha on Delta was canceled, and then another. He booked a flight on China Southern to South Korea, and that was also canceled.
Tao Warren made it to Tokyo. Ken Warren recalled: "She sends me this video from Tokyo along with a handwritten ticket. I don't know the explanation for it yet but she must have gotten on a last-minute flight and the Japanese let her in."
He said knowing she had gotten out of China "brought tears to my eyes. I was so worried about her."
From there, she got a Delta flight to Detroit, where she was checked out by U.S. health officials and put on a flight to St. Louis with orders to comply with the quarantine.
Tao Warren said she didn't feel lonely during her two weeks in solitude. She said she passed the time reading, cleaning the house, watching TV and using her cellphone to keep up with the news in China.
And, of course, talking to her husband from a distance of 25 feet.
It was time to go.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Ken Warren half-shouted. "I love you."
