The Grand Princess, a ship circling
international waters off San Francisco Bay because 21 people aboard (19
crew and two guests) have Covid-19 coronavirus, has been given permission by
authorities to head to the Port of Oakland and start disembarking on Monday.
The first to leave the ship will be “guests who require
acute medical treatment and hospitalization,” Princess Cruises said on Twitter.
Other guests will then be allowed to disembark. “According
to the Governor’s Office of Emergency services, following health screenings,
guests who are California residents will go to a federally operated facility
within California for testing and isolation,” the company said.
Those not from California will be taken by the federal
government to facilities in other states. Crew members will be quarantined and
treated aboard the ship.
In a briefing with reporters on Saturday while awaiting permission
to disembark, officials from Carnival Corp. said the company is working with the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of
Public Health to test the passengers and crew. It was waiting for the Port of
San Francisco to let it dock but the switch to Oakland was made overnight.
As of Saturday, 43 people had been tested and 19 crew
members and two American guests had tested positive for the virus. There are
2,422 guests and 1,111 crew members onboard. All passengers have been asked to
stay in their staterooms.
Princess has tried to make their stay comfortable by
bringing passengers food and activities such as arts and crafts. They have also
added more movies and shows to their televisions and are providing high-speed
WiFi for free.
Princess Cruises president Jan Swartz said the guests were
supposed to disembark from the ship on Saturday. The cruise started on Feb. 21
with Hawaii as its destination. The ship has received test kits from a military
helicopter and extra supplies such as masks and gloves.
Carnival Corp. CEO Arnold Donald said that he had just left
a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and other leaders from the cruise
industry in Fort Lauderdale.
“All of us are intently focused and fully committed to the
health and well-being of our guests, crew, partners, port destinations, and all
others who are involved,” he said. “We’re looking for ways to join forces so we
can all respond quickly as circumstances evolve.”
Donald said Carnival is stepping up health and wellness
screenings, procedures and protocols on all ships.
He said they are “already strong because every year we have
to deal with various disease issues around the world. We have much higher
standards for hygiene and sanitation protocols than you see in most public
places.”
The number of people in the U.S. who have contracted
coronavirus has reached more than 400. Nineteen have died.
Cruise lines have been relaxing cancellation and change
policies and changing itineraries to avoid destinations with high coronaviruses
cases.
Carnival Corp. said the man who first contracted the virus
was on a previous Grand Princess cruise from San Francisco to Mexico from Feb.
11 to 21. He was not on the Hawaii cruise but likely spread it to a crew member
on that previous sailing, though that is still being investigated. He
disembarked and went to California, where he died at a hospital in Placer
County.
Grant Tarling, chief medical officer for Carnival Corp.,
said it’s likely he had gotten sick before he boarded the ship.
Tarling said that all Carnival Corp. ships have medical
centers with full-time doctors, nurses and paramedics. Passengers have also
been given their own hand sanitizers, he said.
“We routinely and regularly promote the importance of hand
washing,” he said.
Another ship, the Diamond Princess, was quarantined for two
weeks in Yokohama, Japan, last month because of the virus. The ship had 3,700
people on board, and about 700 eventually tested positive. Passengers were
taken to a U.S. military base where they were quarantined.
During a visit to the CDC in Atlanta, President Trump said
he would prefer that the passengers not disembark but that he will let the
medical experts weigh in.
He said he doesn’t want the number of cases to increase
“because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”
“And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either,”
he said.
Pence and a new coronavirus task force met with CEOs from
cruise lines on Saturday.
During a news conference afterward, he said that they were
developing a plan to deal with coronavirus on cruises, including enhanced entry
and exit screening and onboard testing.
In a statement after the meeting with Pence, the Cruise
Lines International Association said the industry has committed “to do even
more to protect our guests, our crew and the communities where we sail.”
“This includes more stringent boarding procedures, adding additional
onboard medical resources and temperature screenings at embarkation,” CLIA
said. “We will also develop industry funded protocols to care for guests on
land in the event of an incident to eliminate future incidents of onboard
quarantine.”
The group said it will report back later in the week with
more details on how it will enhance its approach to protecting public health.