SATURDAy, MARCH 21 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST eZ sU A
streamed off the ship — many
headed to the airport to fly to
homes around the world.
“Not one piece of screening was
done,” Cleary said. “off we went.”
The cruise line had been care-
fully monitoring the health of
crew and passengers, and none
were experiencing symptoms as-
sociated with covid-19 as the
cruise ended, according to the
company.
“The ship received clearance
from the CDC and [the united
states Coast guard] on sunday,
march 15 after they reviewed all
the necessary documentation re-
garding the health of passengers
and crew on board on sunday and
throughout the cruise,” the com-
pany said in a statement.
CDC spokeswoman Kristen
Nordlund said the federal agency
had been aware of the positive
test before the ship was allowed
to dock and responded by sending
a notice to local health depart-
ments to alert them to the “medi-
um risk” posed by the disem-
barked passengers.
“a s the situation in the united
states changes, both with increas-
ing CoViD-19 cases and the num-
ber of cruise ships coming in to
port over the next few days, CDC
is continuing to reevaluate how
we approach returning cruise
ships,” Nordlund said.
Thousands of cruise ship pas-
sengers are now slated to return
home in the coming days from
ships whose voyages began before
the industry’s temporary halt.
many of those that remain at
sea have had difficulty finding
countries that will allow them to
dock, even those with no identi-
fied cases aboard.
The Norwegian Jewel, for in-
stance, which departed sydney
on feb. 28, had been sailing to-
ward Honolulu after being pre-
vented from docking in several
south pacific ports.
marilee perkal, whose daugh-
ter and son-in-law are on board,
said they have been told there are
no signs of passengers with symp-
toms. she said that her daughter
recently sent a photo of her and
her husband lounging by the
pool.
as a precaution, her daughter
told her, the ship has had no
buffets since the start of its cruise.
guests are not even allowed to
touch the salad dressing bottles.
“That has been a comfort,” she
said.
on Wednesday, however, Ha-
waii announced that no addition-
al cruise ships will be allowed to
dock. passengers had not yet been
informed of a new plan for disem-
barking, perkal said.
[email protected]
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[email protected]tom Hamburger, Julie tate, Hannah
sampson and Jonathan o’Connell
contributed to this report.The grand princess used a
stricter protocol for distributing
food and fresh towels to quaran-
tined passengers than the Dia-
mond princess, which had al-
lowed crew members wearing
masks and gloves to make deliver-
ies in person. on the grand prin-
cess, passengers said they were
asked to wear masks when they
opened their doors to retrieve
meals left on the floor and said
they never saw crew members.
“The stewards, the ones that
came and delivered things to you,
they all had their masks on,” said
amy Horowitz, a New Yorker cele-
brating her 59th birthday on the
ship with family. “They would just
bang on your door to let you know
they left something at your door
and run away a s fast as you could.”
on march 9, the ship was al-
lowed to dock in oakland. Lewis
and his wife flew home to Wales,
as did other passengers from
around the world, while the
american passengers were sent to
military bases for quarantine.
as of Thursday, more than 870
evacuees from the ship who were
taken to four u.s. military bases
had been tested, according to the
Department of Health and Hu-
man services. another 674 had
declined to be tested.
including passengers and crew
who were tested while still aboard
the ship, u.s. officials said they
were aware of 40 people from the
grand princess who have so far
tested positive for the coronavi-
rus, a number that is expected to
increase in the coming days, ac-
cording to an HHs spokeswom-
an.
Houghton said he and his wife
have been feeling fine and have
declined testing while confined to
Travis air force Base, stewing
about the cruise line’s h andling of
the situation.
“princess Cruise Lines filling
our ship and sailing with sick
people on board was unforgiv-
able,” he said.
other passengers from around
the world who chose to be tested
are now learning their results. in
Wales, Lewis and his wife found
out last weekend that they were
infected.
“With hindsight i suppose you
could say they should have quar-
antined us earlier, though i am
not sure it would have made a
difference,” Lewis said. “people
will learn a lot from this, hopeful-
ly.”Seeking a port
on march 5, the same day that
grand princess passengers were
being quarantined to their rooms,
another cruise ship, the Costa
Luminosa, set sail from fort Lau-
derdale on an itinerary through
the Caribbean and on to europe.
The ship carried 1,400 passen-
gers, including 233 americans.
ecker, 41, said her parents Jef-
frey and Kathryn Bitner were ner-
vous about going on the trip. Butpassengers said performances
and activities were canceled on
the evening of march 4 and the
following morning, but they con-
tinued to mingle at the bar and
move freely around the ship.
The buffet was still open at
about 1:45 p.m. on march 5, ac-
cording to Keane Li of san fran-
cisco, who was keeping close tabs
on his parents on the ship and
posting updates to Twitter.
“given what happened on the
Diamond princess, there
should’ve been a contingency
plan for this,” said Li, whose fa-
ther, Wai Li, was diagnosed with
covid-19 after disembarking the
ship last week. “i get that they
didn’t want to scare anyone, but
they should’ve acted sooner.”
Kailee Higgins ott, a high
school junior from the Bay area,
said she was eating lunch in the
main dining room on march 5
when the captain announced that
people needed to stay six feet
away from one another and re-
treat to their staterooms.
“i mean, when he said social
distancing, everyone like started
to laugh because we were sitting
in a dining room and obviously
we couldn’t be six feet away from
everyone,” she said.
on march 6, Captain John Har-
ry smith assured passengers he
would keep them informed, ac-
cording to announcements
shared by a passenger with The
Washington post. an update
came later that day, but not from
the captain.
in a news conference at the
White House that afternoon,
pence said that 46 people had
been tested from among the more
than 3,500 people on board.
among them, 21 had tested posi-
tive, 19 of them crew members.
passengers learned there were
confirmed coronavirus cases on
board at the same time the public
did. smith came back on the loud-
speaker.
“We apologize, but we were not
given advance notice of this an-
nouncement by the u.s. federal
government,” the captain said. “it
would have been our preference
to be the first to make this news
available to you.”
Carolyn Wright, 63-year-old
from s anta fe, said she was “hear-
ing things on the news that were
affecting us directly that were
never communicated to the pas-
sengers being affected. it was the
most frustrating, helpless feel-
ing.”
“When all control over your
personal life is taken from you
and you're not even told what's
going to happen to you or why or
anything, the stress level is incal-
culable,” she added.
after pence’s announcement,
Carnival relaxed its policies to
allow guests to cancel or postpone
cruises because of potential wor-
ries about the coronavirus.
from preVious page
The Coronavirus Outbreak
noAH Berger/AssoCIAted PressRoger Frizzell of Carnival Corp. said Princess Cruises was not aware until days after the Grand Princess left San Francisco on Feb. 21 that a passenger on the ship’s previous cruise had been hospitalized.
hospital after the flight arrived in
atlanta, the CDC said.Clearance to disembark
on march 8, the state Depart-
ment and the Centers for Disease
Control and prevention warned
u.s. citizens, particularly those
with medical issues, not to travel
by cruise ship. The move pan-
icked industry officials, who
scrambled to pull together an
action plan and get ahead of fur-
ther government action, accord-
ing to people familiar with the
situation, who spoke on the con-
dition of anonymity to describe
private discussions.
around 6 p.m. that day, the
msC meraviglia pulled out of mi-
ami for a scheduled eight-day
cruise to the Caribbean.
four days later, the msC cruise
line was informed by Canadian
authorities that a passenger on
the ship’s previous journey had
tested positive for the coronavi-
rus, according to the cruise line.
some crew members and guests
who had traveled with that pas-
senger had remained on board for
the subsequent voyage.
passengers received notices the
next day that seven crew mem-
bers who may have been in con-
tact with the virus-infected for-
mer guest were quarantined, ac-
cording to a copy reviewed by The
post. it did not mention possible
contact with other passengers.
The ship continued, making a
stop saturday at an msC-owned
island in the Bahamas.
Jeffrey Cleary, 55, said passen-
gers had their temperatures tak-
en before reboarding the ship.
But when they arrived back in
miami on sunday, n o one checked
their temperatures, he said.
Nearly 3,900 passengerswere allowed to disembark, but
the spanish government would
not allow others to come ashore
because spain has closed its
ports, the company said.
on march 13, the cruise compa-
ny said it was told that the italian
man on the ship’s p revious voyage
had tested positive. The following
day, march 14, it learned that the
woman hospitalized in puerto
rico and her husband also had
tested positive.
one more day passed before
passengers were isolated in their
rooms, according to people
aboard. a full week had passed
since the sick woman disem-
barked in puerto rico.
“other measures had already
been implemented in the days
before, including isolation of the
close contacts of the suspect cases
and the cancellation of several on
board activities,” rossella Carra-
ra, a Costa Cruises vice president,
said in an email.
“The health and safety of
guests, crew members and of the
destinations is of the utmost im-
portance,” she added.
By the time the ship docked in
marseille early Thursday morn-
ing, five passengers and two crew
members had flu-like symptoms,
the company said. passengers
were screened by french health
authorities when they arrived.
a group of 316 u.s. and Canadi-
an citizens were flown to atlanta
on a chartered flight friday. ac-
cording to passengers, some were
coughing during the trans-atlan-
tic flight. The results came in
while the plane was still in the air:
Two guests from florida and one
from massachusetts had tested
positive for the coronavirus, the
company said. a fourth passenger
was taken for evaluation to ashe said they were assured by
cruise authorities that there was
no need for concern — and also
warned that they would not be
reimbursed if they canceled.
“so they believed them,” she
said, “and they left.”
passengers did not know that
during a previous voyage of the
Costa Luminosa, an italian man
had complained of heart trouble
and was taken off the ship in the
Cayman islands on feb. 29, ac-
cording to Carnival-owned Costa
Cruises, which operates the ship.
He later tested positive for the
coronavirus and died.
on the current voyage, an ital-
ian woman disembarked march 8
in puerto rico complaining of
breathing troubles, then tested
positive for the virus. so did her
husband traveling with her, the
company has since said.
While it awaited test results,
the cruise line did not initially tell
passengers about the sick woman
who got off the ship, even though
she was hospitalized, relatives of
current passengers said.
instead, the ship continued to-
ward its next port of call, antigua.
after authorities there denied the
ship docking because of the ill
woman who had disembarked in
puerto rico, it headed out for the
multiday trip across the atlantic
ocean.
only then, on march 9, were
passengers told about the sick
woman, according to a letter de-
livered on board, a copy of which
was obtained by The post.
Those aboard the ship contin-
ued to mingle and eat communal-
ly. By the time the Costa Lumino-
sa reached the Canary islands, off
the coast of northwest africa,
three more passengers had coro-
navirus-like symptoms. TheyClIff HAwKIns/AgenCe frAnCe-Presse/getty ImAges
Four days after the MSC Meraviglia left Miami on March 8, MSC learned from Canadian authorities
that a passenger on the ship’s previous journey had tested positive, according to the cruise line.