Another cruise has gotten caught up in the coronavirus outbreak, this time it’s a West Coast-based ship currently headed to San Francisco.
Officials are tracking down passengers who disembarked from the Grand Princess in San Francisco last month after a fellow cruise-goer died of the virus, the LA Times reported Wednesday. Health officials in Placer County believe the 71-year-old man was exposed to the infection during a round-trip voyage to Mexico from Feb. 11 to Feb. 21.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said roughly 2,500 passengers traveled on the same voyage as the Placer Country victim. It’s possible they may have been exposed.
After returning from Mexico, the Grand Princess set sail for Hawaii, with 62 people from the first trip staying onboard. But the vessel was ordered to turn around after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notified the company it was investigating “a small cluster” of virus cases tied to the Mexico cruise, Princess Cruises said in a letter to passengers Wednesday.
The 62 passengers who remained onboard after that initial trip are now required to stay in their rooms until they have been screened and cleared by medical staff.
According to Governor Newsom, 11 passengers and 10 crew members on the cruise were showing symptoms as of Wednesday. He said the cruise would be held off the coast until everyone on it could be screened. Testing kits will be flown to the ship.
News of the cruise ship-linked death prompted Newsom to declare a state of emergency in California, where 53 cases of coronavirus—officially called COVID-19—have been confirmed. The patient from the cruise ship is the state’s only death. Placer County Public Health said the man was an elderly adult with underlying health conditions. He tested positive for the virus Tuesday.
At least 158 coronavirus cases have been diagnosed in the U.S., according to the Johns Hopkins University virus tracker. Sixteen states have recorded cases.
Globally, the virus has infected over 95,400 and killed more than 3,200, the vast majority in mainland China. But the disease has spread rapidly around the world over recent weeks with thousands of cases now in South Korea, Iran and Italy.
Grand Princess is the sister cruise of Diamond Princess, which was quarantined in Japan for two weeks after the company learned that a passenger on a previous voyage was diagnosed with the virus. More than 700 people out of around 3,700 on board were diagnosed, prompting criticism about the effectiveness of a quarantine that ended with almost 1 in 5 people infected.
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