Twenty-one people aboard a mammoth cruise ship off the California coast tested positive for the new coronavirus and 19 of them are crew members, Vice President Mike Pence announced Friday, amid evidence the vessel was the breeding ground for a deadly cluster of more than 10 cases during its previous voyage.
He said federal officials were working with California authorities around-the-clock to bring the Grand Princess, with more than 3,500 on board, to a non-commercial port over the weekend and test everyone for the virus. There was no immediate word on where the vessel will dock.
“Those that will need to be quarantined will be quarantined. Those who will require medical help will receive it,” Pence said.
The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 16 after Florida health officials said late Friday night that two people who tested positive for the new coronavirus died in the state. The announcement was the first report of deaths on the East Coast.
The number of infections swelled to over 200, scattered across about half the states. Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota and Nebraska reported their first cases.
President Donald Trump, speaking earlier Friday at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said he would have preferred not to let the Grand Princess passengers disembark onto American soil but will defer to the recommendations of medical experts.
“I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault,” he said. “And it wasn’t the fault of the people on the ship either. Okay? It wasn’t their fault either. And they are mostly Americans.”
California state Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins said those aboard the Grand Princess should be brought ashore,
“We have to be better than just leaving all these people out at sea. There are Americans on board, families, seniors, and others all wanting nothing more than to be safe and to get treatment if they need it. With the proper precautions in place and following the protocols called for by science, we can protect the public health while preserving our basic humanity," Atkins said. “Any attempt to use these passengers as pawns or scapegoats for political cover has to be rejected by anyone with a working moral compass.”
The ship was heading from Hawaii to San Francisco when it was ordered Wednesday to keep its distance from shore so 46 people with possible coronavirus symptoms could be tested. On Thursday, a military helicopter crew lowered test kits onto the 951-foot (290-meter) ship by rope and later flew them for analysis at a state lab.
Health officials undertook the testing after reporting that a passenger on a previous voyage of the ship, in February, died of the disease.
In the past few days, health authorities disclosed that at least 10 other people who were on the same journey also were found to be infected. And some passengers on that trip stayed aboard for the current voyage — increasing crew members' exposure to the virus.
“We know the coronavirus manifested among the previous passengers ... we will be testing everyone on the ship, we will be quarantining as necessary," Pence said. “We anticipate that they will be quarantined on the ship. They will not need to disembark."
Princess Cruises said the ship's doctor began informing passengers and crew of their results after confirmation from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Another Princess ship, the Diamond Princess, was quarantined for two weeks in Yokohama, Japan, last month because of the virus, and ultimately about 700 of the 3,700 people aboard became infected in what experts pronounced a public-health failure, with the vessel essentially becoming a floating germ factory.