PORT ANGELES — The wait is over today for new mother Sherie Maddox, who has only watched her baby daughter from afar since the toddler was adopted in China more than a week ago.
For 10 days, Mrs. Maddox’s husband, Timmy, 38, has lived in isolation with baby Maile in a travel trailer in the Maddoxes’ driveway off Mount Angeles Road as a voluntary precaution against the spread of SARS.
Mrs. Maddox, 42, and daughter Kira, 3, have abstained from hugs, kisses and other physical contact with Maddox and 10-month-old Maile as they wait out the 10 days.
Maddox, a stay-at-home dad, traveled to China for two weeks to complete Maile’s adoption from Changsha, Hunan province, and collected his daughter on Mother’s Day.
Neither he nor the baby have shown any symptoms of SARS — severe acute respiratory syndrome — since their return, and the Maddoxes don’t think it likely that they have contracted the virus.
But SARS has infected more than 8,300 people and caused 764 deaths since the illness surfaced in southern China in November, according to figures updated Saturday by the World Health Organization.
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