Grand Princess cruise ship held off California amid suspected coronavirus outbreak

A cruise ship that previously carried two passengers who contracted coronavirus, including one who died, is now being held 400 miles off the California coast after at least 20 people onboard fell ill.

Thousands of passengers are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship that was banned on Wednesday from returning to its home port of San Francisco from a voyage to Hawaii amid the suspected coronavirus outbreak.

Two passengers who traveled on the same ship on a previous voyage last month between San Francisco and Mexico later fell ill and tested positive for the coronavirus.

The first was a 71-year-old man who died in Placer County, east of Sacramento, on Wednesday in California’s first fatality from the disease. The second, from the Bay Area, is currently in hospital and is said to be ‘gravely ill’.

Eleven passengers and 10 crew members who are currently on the same ship have now reported symptoms that could turn out to be the coronavirus, seasonal flu or the common cold.

Sixty two passengers who were on the previous Mexican cruise where the two cases were detected remained on the ship for the Hawaii voyage as well.

Health officials said those passengers had contact with the two coronavirus cases. It is not yet clear if the 21 people currently reporting symptoms are among the 62 who were on the Mexico leg of the trip and came in contact with the two infected passengers.

Thousands of people on board the Grand Princess cruise ship are being held off the coast of California after a suspected coronavirus outbreak on board (file image)

The Grand Princess is currently 400 miles off San Francisco and heading for port having returned from Hawaii after 11 passengers and 10 crew reported symptoms of coronavirus

WHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS?

Like other coronaviruses, including those that cause the common cold and that triggered SARS, COVID-19 is a respiratory illness.

The most common symptoms are:
Fever
Dry cough
Shortness of breath
Difficulty breathing
Fatigue

Although having a runny nose doesn’t rule out coronavirus, it doesn’t thus far appear to be a primary symptom.

Most people only become mildly ill, but the infection can turn serious and even deadly, especially for those who are older or have underlying health conditions.

In these cases, patients develop pneumonia, which can cause:

Potentially with yellow, green or bloody mucus
Fever, sweating and shaking chills
Shortness of breath
Rapid or shallow breathing
Pain when breathing, especially when breathing deeply or coughing
Low appetite, energy and fatigue
Nausea and vomiting (more common in children)
Confusion (more common in elderly people)
Some patients have also reported diarrhea and kidney failure has occassionally been a complication.

Avoid people with these symtpoms. If you develop them, call your health care provider before going to the hospital or doctor, so they and you can prepare to minimize possivle exposure if they suspect you have coronavirus.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has declared a statewide emergency, said the cruise ship would remain at sea until passengers and crew complaining of symptoms that may be consistent with the coronavirus can be tested to determine whether they have it.

Coronavirus testing kits will be flown out to the ship on Thursday and flown back with samples to be analyzed at a state laboratory in the San Francisco Bay area, a process Newsom said should produce results in a matter of hours.

‘So we’re holding that ship, which is thousands of passengers, off the coast, and will be conducting those tests and getting those tests back,’ Newsom said.

‘The ship will not come onshore until we properly assess passengers.’

Two passengers – who identified themselves as Laura and Leah – uploaded a YouTube video showing themselves in their cabin after a warning was issued.

They are shown reading out a statement from the cruise line while one of them coughs, though the pair insist they do not have coronavirus.

California’s first coronavirus victim had boarded the Grand Princess in San Francisco on February 11 for a 10 day voyage to Mexico, arriving back on February 21.

The man subsequently fell ill and went to hospital in Placer County, to the east of Sacramento, where he was diagnosed with the virus before he died.

Health officials say it is ‘highly likely’ the man was exposed to the virus on board the Grand Princess but have not yet said how the disease got on board.

The Grand Princess can hold up to 2,500 passengers and 1,150 crew. It is not clear how many people are currently on board. State health authorities, working with the CDC, are trying to contact some 2,500 passengers who were on the earlier voyage.

A statement from the cruise line said that it had been alerted by the CDC that a ‘small cluster’ of coronavirus cases in northern California had been linked to the ship.

The predicament of the Grand Princess cruise liner was reminiscent of the Diamond Princess vessel that was quarantined off the coast of Japan in February and was, for a time, the largest concentration of cornoavirus cases outside China.

Some American passengers from that ship were ultimately repatriated to military bases in California for extended quarantines.

Two passengers who took a cruise to Mexico on board the same vessel were diagnosed with the virus Tuesday, before one died Wednesday in California’s first confirmed fatality. 11 people have now died across the US

California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency Wednesday, and said coronavirus testing kits are now being flown to the Grand Princess

How coronavirus has caused cruise ship chaos: Holidaymakers around the world are trapped on ocean liners

The coronavirus outbreak has highlighted the dangers of travelling on cruise ships packed with elderly passengers after hundreds of people were infected on the Diamond Princess and several other voyages were wrecked by virus fears.

The Diamond Princess became one of the world’s largest clusters of virus cases when more than 700 people tested positive during a two-week quarantine in Japan.

Another vessel, the MS Westerdam, was turned away by five governments in a sign of official panic over cruise ships despite no cases being confirmed on board.

In addition, fears of a cruise ship outbreak on the Grand Princess off the California coast have grown after a former passenger died of coronavirus and 21 people showed possible symptoms.

Several other ships have had their journeys disrupted by the virus after passengers required urgent tests or countries refused them permission to dock.

Experts have highlighted a number of reasons why cruise ships are vulnerable to the spread of disease, including the large number of elderly passengers in a confined space.

There have also been fears that air-conditioning systems could spread the virus, with experts pointing out that ventilation systems were previously linked to the spread of SARS.

Scientists say that the large number of elderly passengers who are trapped together on cruise ships is likely to make the vessels more vulnerable to the spread of disease.

Older people, especially those with chronic illnesses such as heart or lung disease, have been the most likely to catch the virus since the outbreak began in China late last year.

California health authorities have confirmed 53 cases, the most of any single US state, from the respiratory disease that has killed more than 3,000 people worldwide.

California, Washington, Florida and Hawaii have all now declared statewide emergencies due to coronavirus.

The death of the former cruise passenger in California marked the first coronavirus fatality in the US outside of Washington state, where 10 people have died in a cluster of at least 39 infections in the Seattle area. Researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected there for weeks.

Residents of King County in Washington state where 31 people have tested positive for coronavirus and nine people have died are being advised to work from home to avoid possible exposure.

Public health officials in King County, which includes Seattle and is home to over 2.2 million people, have urged local businesses to allow employees to telecommute for the next three weeks in an effort to curb the outbreak.

They are also recommending that higher-risk groups – including people over the age of 60, pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions or weakened immune systems – stay home and away from large social gatherings.

The latest recommendations announced Wednesday came after an employee at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters was confirmed to have tested positive for coronavirus, potentially exposing some 50,000 others who work at the plant.

Hours later officials confirmed that an employee at Facebook’s Stadium East office in Seattle had also tested positive. The company said the office will be closed until at least March 9.

Northshore School District, which serves 22,000 students across King and Snohomish counties, announced late Wednesday that it was closing all 36 of its schools after a parent or volunteer at Woodmoor Elementary tested ‘presumptive positive’ for coronavirus.

Northshore Superintendent Michelle Reid issued a statement saying the schools will remain closed for up to 14 days ‘while we continue to monitor the situation and health department recommendations’.

Reid said administrators plan to begin conducting classes online on Monday.

She noted that multiple individuals across the district are under self-quarantine after being exposed to the virus at a nursing home in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland where the majority of the 39 Washington state cases have occurred.

Authorities launched a federal investigation into the nursing home, Life Care Center, on Wednesday.

Seema Verma, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is sending inspectors to Life Care along with CDC experts to figure out what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.

Officials in King County have purchased an 85-bed motel south of Seattle to house patients for recovery and isolation.

Health officials in North Carolina reported that a person from Wake County tested positive for the illness after visiting the nursing home and then flying back home across the country.

The person’s flight from the Seattle area to the Raleigh-Durham airport raised fears other passengers were exposed to the virus.

In Los Angeles, a contract medical worker who was conducting screenings at the city’s main airport has tested positive for the virus. The person wore protective equipment while on the job so it was unclear how the worker contracted the virus, Homeland Security officials said.

Medics wheel out a person on a stretcher from the Life Care Center of Kirkland on Wednesday where a cluster of the US coronavirus deaths have occurred

Most of the Washington state victims were patients at Life Care Center (pictured). The nursing home is now the subject of a federal investigation

Officials in King County in Washington state have purchased an 85-bed Econo Lodge motel (pictured above) south of Seattle to house patients for recovery and isolation

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE 11 US PATIENTS WHO DIED FROM CORONAVIRUS

So far, 11 people have died of coronavirus in the US, federal and local health officials say.

Ten of the deaths have occurred in Washington state – nine in King County and one of Snohomish County.

Most came from Life Care Center, a long-term care facility in Kirkland.

One deaths has occurred in Placer County, California.

Here’s what we currently know:

1. A man in his 50s was brought from Life Care Center to Harborview Medical Center on February 24. He died two days later and is the first death in the US from coronavirus

2. A man in his 50s from King County who had underlying health conditions. He was hospitalized and died at EvergreenHealth on February 29

3. A man in his 40s from Snohomish County who died after being hospitalized at EvergreenHealth in Kirkland on March 1

4. A woman in her 70s, who lived at Life Care and was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth. She had pre-existing conditions, and died on March 1

5. A man in his 70s, linked to Life Care, was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth. He died on February 29 and pre-existing conditions

6. A man in his 70s, who was also a resident of Life Care, was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth. He died on March 1 and also had underlying health conditions

7. A woman in her 70s, who was a Life Care resident, was hospitalized at EvergreenHealth and died on March 2

8. A woman in her 80s, who was linked to Life Care and was previously reported to be in critical condition at EvergreenHealth, died on March 1

9. A woman in her 80s, who was a resident of Life Care and was never hospitalized, died at her family home on February 26

10. A tenth death was confirmed on March 4, but Public Health – Seattle & King County has not yet released information about the latest death

11. An elderly patient died on March 4 in Placer County, California after likely becoming infected on a Princess cruise ship that traveled from San Francisco to Mexico between February 11 and 21

Florida declared a public health emergency after confirming its three cases. Among them was a 29-year-old woman who had recently returned from Italy and tested positive. That woman claims she told the CDC of her symptoms after flying from Italy to New York on her way back to Florida.

She claims the CDC told her she was okay to continue on the flight from New York to Tampa. She was tested for coronavirus after arriving back in Tampa last week. Her sister later also tested positive.

In New York, health officials put hundreds of residents in self-quarantine after members of two families in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle were diagnosed with the virus – bring the total number of confirmed cases in the state to 13.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said the disease appeared to have spread from a Manhattan lawyer, 50, to his wife, 20-year-old son, 14-year-old daughter, a neighbor and another family of five.

A female healthcare worker who has not been linked to the attorney had earlier tested positive after returning from a trip to Iran.

Health officials said the lawyer, who is in intensive care at the New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center, was suffering from severe pneumonia, which put him in more danger than others who have also tested positive.

His family remain quarantined in their home in New Rochelle in Westchester County. The neighbor, who initially drove the attorney to the hospital when he started suffering from coronavirus symptoms last Friday night, is also under self-quarantine at home.

Following the positive tests, Cuomo said about 1,000 people in Westchester County and New York City will be contacted by health professionals and asked to self-quarantine.

They include some 300 people from New Rochelle synagogue the infected family attends, two people at the son’s university, an unconfirmed number of students at the daughter’s school in the Bronx, seven employees and one intern at the Manhattan law firm and eight staffers at New York Presbyterian-Lawrence Hospital.

The lawyer commuted every day on the Metro-North Railroad from his home in New Rochelle to his small law firm across from Grand Central Terminal. His wife and one of their four children also work at the firm.

Seven law firm employees were identified as being at risk of coronavirus after having close, prolonged contact with the infected attorney.

Yeshiva University, the private Jewish university where the lawyer’s diagnosed 20-year-old son is a student, canceled classes at its Washington Heights campus on Wednesday as a precaution.

The SAR High School in the Bronx where the lawyer’s diagnosed 14-year-old daughter is a student was shut down after his positive test was announced Tuesday. The Westchester Torah Academy where the children of the other family who tested positive had already decided to close until Friday as a precaution.

The World Health Organization has since warned that the fatality rate of the virus (3.4 percent) is higher than initially thought – making it more than three times deadlier than the flu.

Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading expert on coronavirus in the US, told Congress on Wednesday it was still too early to determine accurate mortality rates of the disease in America because it wasn’t yet clear how many had been infected.

U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday agreed on an emergency funding package worth more than $7 billion to address the spread of the disease. The bill would be introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives later on Wednesday.

In New York, health officials put hundreds of residents in self-quarantine after members of two families in the New York City suburb of New Rochelle were diagnosed with the virus

There are more than 95,000 confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide as of Wednesday evening

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEING TESTED FOR CORONAVIRUS

On Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence announced that any American can be tested for coronavirus as long as a doctor approves it.

The move appears to expand upon previous criteria needed for testing by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But how do you determine if you have symptoms of COVID-19 and when you should see a doctor?

We break down everything you need to know about being tested for the virus that has infected more than 120 Americans and killed at least nine.

WHAT ARE THE LATEST GUIDELINES FOR BEING TESTED?

There are three groups of people that the CDC recommends get tested.

1. People with symptoms such as fever, cough or shortness of breath who have been in ‘close contact’ with someone confirmed to have coronavirus

2. Patients with symptoms who have traveled to areas affected by the virus within the last 14 days

3. Those with symptoms who need to be hospitalized and no other cause for their illness is found. They don’t need to have a travel history or exposure to another patient

HOW DOES THIS DIFFER FROM THE PREVIOUS CRITERIA?

When the CDC first began testing, only those with a travel history to China – where the outbreak emerged – or those who had been exposed to a confirmed coronavirus patient were tested.

However, the agency says its criteria for testing is always ‘subject to change as additional information becomes available.’

WHAT TO DO IF YOU NEED A TEST?

Health officials strongly advise that anyone who believes they may be infected not show up unannounced at their doctor’s office in case they expose others to the highly-contagious disease.

Instead, the CDC suggests immediately calling your physician or healthcare provider.

‘Your healthcare professional will work with your state’s public health department and CDC to determine if you need to be tested for COVID-19,’ the CDC’s website states.

If you are suspected of having the virus, you will most likely get tested at a hospital.

The test involves getting a swab of the patient’s nostril and throat. If the patient has a wet cough, a sample of sputum (a mixture of saliva and mucus) will also be collected.

WHY HAS IT BEEN DIFFICULT FOR PEOPLE TO GET TESTED?

There have been multiple reports of people not having accessing to get tested.

The first batch of test kits that the CDC sent to state and local health departments were faulty, which led to a delay.

Secondly, the CDC had strict criteria for testing, which led to missed diagnoses of people who caught the virus from so-called ‘community spread,’ meaning it’s unknown how they were infected.

A third reason is that some health departments did not leave the decision to test up to doctors as the CDC suggested.

For instance, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health initially required doctors to call a hotline to determine if their patients met CDC criteria for testing.

Then, before the test could be administered, it had to be authorized at the State Public Health Lab.

WILL IT BE EASIER TO GET TESTED NOW?

Since the CDC’s testing fiasco, several health departments have either received new kits from the federal agency or made their own.

Additionally, the US Food and Drug Administration expanded its Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) policy so allow more labs can apply for approval to test for the virus.

The CDC that 75,000 test kits are currently available and more are being manufactured.

FDA Commissioner Dr Stephen Han told reporters on Monday that close to one million people would be tested by the end of the week.

But figures from the Association of Public Health Laboratories show that likely no more than 100,000 people would be tested by week’s end.