With coronavirus cruise ship finally home, Oakland becomes health triage center
The Grand Princess, the cruise ship that become a symbol of the government’s struggle to deal with the new coronavirus, is home.
The ill-fated ship carrying 3,531 people who have been stranded a dozen miles offshore for nearly a week, landed today at a specially secured section of the Port of Oakland after sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge this morning, under the watchful eye of news cameras and interested onlookers.
The beleaguered passengers cheered as the big ship passed under the Golden Gate. Passenger Mark Price from Tallahassee, Florida snapped a photo of the bridge, and exclaimed on social media: “Happy to see this again!”
Modesto resident Gina Pallotta said she and her husband Mike Meky did not expect to disembark until Tuesday. The couple have been trying to get refills on Meky’s diabetes medications for days now, Pallotta said, and he has been taking half-doses of his meds to make it last.
“It’s kinda crazy here,” Pallotta said. “There are dozens of people in hazmat suits, ambulances everywhere, all kinds of buses to take people to wherever they’re going to be taking us, news helicopters flying over. It’s really quite the scene, almost like a scene out of a horror movie in some ways.”
Federal and state officials say they will begin unloading the 21 people onboard who have tested positive for COVID-19, and will send them to Northern California hospitals for treatment. Officials said Sunday that 19 of them are crew members.
Everyone else on the ship will be sent to federal facilities for quarantining and testing.
The ship, operated by Miami-based Carnival, was on a cruise to Hawaii when a positive coronavirus test came in for a previous passenger. The ship was supposed to dock in San Francisco on Wednesday, but was held at sea while sick passengers were tested for the virus, and state and federal officials decided what to do with the occupants, who have been largely sequestered in their cabins.
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said she’s pushed federal officials to outline detailed plans to protect residents of her city from the virus as passengers are evacuated from the ship.
“We are very glad to play a role, which is the right thing to do, to welcome these passengers into safety and to release them from what has had to have been a terrifying experience of being trapped on this ship with known cases of COVID-19,” she told reporters in Sacramento after a news conference Monday.
Passengers will be quarantined, but where?
Passengers from California, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms of COVID-19, will be quarantined at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield or Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, near San Diego, state emergency services officials said in a statement Sunday morning.
For ship passengers, who have complained about being kept the dark during their days in limbo, the docking is welcome relief, but not the end of their ordeal. One Northern California resident, @gadgetgirl6, tweeted she wants to talk to an attorney after being confined to her cabin with limited food options.
“We will be taken to a federal facility in state to be tested,” she wrote. “No word how long or where. Any ACLU attorney out there can tell us our rights??”
One passenger described the experience, and especially a scene this morning on board as creepy. He peered out of his cabin, and saw “someone in full hazmat gear talking into someone down the hall. A little creepy.”
Michael Bell, a 71-year-old passenger from Chico, made waves Monday morning by calling out President Donald Trump in an interview with the New York Daily News. Reacting to Trump’s Friday comments about preferring the ship remain offshore so that the 21 sick people wouldn’t be counted as U.S. coronavirus patient numbers, Bell asked what the president would say if a member of Trump’s family were on the ship.
“We think our great leader didn’t want this ship to come ashore because his numbers would go bad,” Bell said. “Hey, how about our health?” he asked. “What if (Trump’s daughter) Ivanka was on this ship? What would he do?”
Michelle, an Illinois resident who didn’t want her last name published in The Sacramento Bee out of concern about repercussions, said she and her grandmother are frustrated that they will have to go into quarantine for so long.
“I will be missing spending spring break with my long-distance boyfriend, as well as missing the wedding of a very dear friend of mine,” Michelle wrote in an email, “so I’m struggling with that. My parents are currently in self-quarantine, and I really just wish that I could be sent to be with them.”
Her grandmother feels the federal government is making “a stupid decision based on media panic and fear,” Michelle wrote. The grandmother lives alone, Michelle said, and can’t understand why she can’t isolate herself there.
The two women and many other passengers aboard the ship have been locked in their cabins for four days, Michelle said, adding that the crew has done an incredible job and the quality of the food has not dropped.
In terms of compensation, Princess has given each passenger a $300 credit, Michelle said, and those who purchased WiFi packages have been given refunds because that service was made available to everyone after news broke of the quarantine. If you have booked travel on Princess Cruise Lines through May 31, the company’s website has a link to a page where they explain how consumers can get credits for future voyages. Princess is not offering any refunds.
The women and other non-California residents will be quarantined in facilities in other states. The ship’s crew will remain quarantined on the ship, which will leave Oakland’s port. None of the roughly 2,500 passengers will be released to the general public, state officials said. The Grand Princess will remain at the Oakland port only long enough to unload passengers, they said.
California coronavirus death sparked concern
The tests of sick people on the ship were conducted after it was revealed that a passenger on the ship’s previous cruise, in mid-February, had contracted the virus, and was sick on the ship. That man, from Placer County, died in a Sacramento-area hospital on March 4, becoming the first California patient to succumb to the worldwide pandemic. At least eight positive tests have been now connected to the ship’s previous voyage to Mexico.
More than 900 of the ship’s passengers are California residents, the Office of Emergency Services said. Passengers from a previous ship, the Diamond Princess, were quarantined at several facilities, including Travis Air Force Base, after repatriation flights from Yokohama, Japan.
State officials said Oakland was chosen because it has docking facilities large enough to handle the big cruise ship and because the “location was the easiest to seal off, securely move passengers toward their isolation destinations and protect the safety of the public.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom commended the city of Oakland and Alameda County for their willingness to help.
“They are showing the world what makes our state great — coming to the rescue of thousands of people trapped aboard this ship and helping tackle a national emergency,” the governor said in written remarks Sunday.
The ship’s odyssey has been chronicled in numerous social media posts in recent days, in which passengers lamented being stuck with little information available about when they could exit.
On Friday night, Coast Guard helicopters flew supplies to the ship, which was idling 20 miles off the coast of San Mateo County “for logistical purposes,” according to company officials.
The company confirmed that “personal protective equipment (PPE), which included gloves and face masks, was delivered to Grand Princess by U.S. Coast Guard helicopter” to supplement supplies already onboard.
The age ranges for the 21 who tested positive are: Three passengers ages 21 to 29 years old; four people who are 30 to 39; six who are 40 to 49; six who are 50 to 59; one who is between 60 and 69; and one between 70 and 79 years old. Only 46 passengers have been tested so far, but all of the passengers will be tested at some point, officials said.
Everyone on the ship will be tested
Vice President Mike Pence, who is in charge of the administration’s coronavirus effort, said everyone on the ship will be tested.
“It’s very likely that the crew on the Grand Princess was exposed on two different outings, and we know the coronavirus manifested among the previous passengers,” Pence said, “and so we will find that out. But we will be testing everyone on the ship. We will be quarantining as necessary. But with regard to the 1,100 member crew, we anticipate that they will be quarantined on the ship, will not need to disembark.”
Newsom on Sunday in Oakland said a team of medical officials would board the ship this afternoon to begin triaging passengers. Crews on shore cleared off and fenced a 10-acre area in the port.
Newsom said the Oakland was selected in part because it has an airport, which will be used to fly foreign passengers and Americans from states other than California out of state. They will not interact with the general public in the main airport terminals, officials said.
On Monday, Schaaf clarified that passengers will not actually fly out of Oakland International Airport, but rather through a separate, private airfield adjacent to the commercial airport.
First off the Grand Princess will be people who need to be hospitalized, although officials don’t know how many will be in that category, Newsom said. Next will be more than 900 California residents on board, who will be taken out of Oakland and quarantined for two weeks at Travis Air Force Base and the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
After passengers are evacuated from the ship, the Port of Oakland will be scrubbed clean, Newsom said.
“I can promise you the local workers have nothing to fear,” he said.
Newsom also told elderly people and those with preexisting conditions to avoid cruise ships as coronavirus spreads across the world, warning that cruise companies could jeopardize the future of their industry if they do not respond appropriately.
“If you are elderly, if you have a preexisting condition … I would highly recommend, almost demand, that you not go on a cruise,” Newsom said.
The U.S. State Department said Sunday afternoon that all Americans should avoid cruises.
On Sunday, Newsom declined to join a chorus of voices criticizing the Trump administration for its handling of the coronaviruse outbreak. Instead, Newsom said he’s working closely with federal officials to fight the virus and praised Pence’s work handling the situation.
This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 12:43 PM.