March 28, 2024

Erichoffer

Savvy business masters

California downplays fears as coronavirus-hit ship set to dock

LOS ANGELES: California on Sunday (Mar 8) prepared to disembark passengers from a virus-hit cruise ship as officials played down any risk to local communities.

The Grand Princess, which has 21 novel coronavirus infections among the 3,500 people on board, is set to dock in Oakland Monday after four days held off the coast of nearby San Francisco.

Passengers “will not be released into the general public” but will either be moved to hospitals for treatment or to federal “isolation facilities” in California, Texas and Georgia, officials said on Sunday.

READ: COVID-19: ‘Get us off this ship’ pleads passenger on virus-hit Hawaii cruise liner

Oakland’s port was chosen as it was the easiest location “to seal off, securely move passengers toward their isolation destinations and protect the safety of the public,” the governor’s emergency services office said.

Crew will remain quarantined on board the ship which “will depart Oakland as soon as possible.”

“No one will be quarantined in Oakland, nor will any passengers be released into the general public,” said the city’s mayor Libby Schaaf.

READ: US says it is tracking ship that may have shared crew with coronavirus-hit cruise liner

Military bases in California, Texas and Georgia will host disembarked passengers from those regions, the Department of Health and Human Services said in a separate statement

“Several hundred” foreign passengers will be repatriated to their countries, it added.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams called the operation to help those on board a “delicate balance” but tamped down fears of any risk to the wider US public.

“The most important thing for American people to know is that folks who test positive will be kept isolated so that they cannot expose other people,” he told CBS.

BOOKMARK THIS: Our comprehensive coverage of the novel coronavirus and its development

Download our app or subscribe to our Telegram channel for the latest updates on the COVID-19 outbreak: https://cna.asia/telegram

Source Article