A cruise ship with 42 people experiencing flu-like symptoms is headed to Florida

Authored by edition.cnn.com and submitted by damnthistrafficjam
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(CNN) — A cruise ship with 42 sick people aboard is heading to Florida and is expected to dock next week.

Initially, the ship was granted permission to disembark in Punta Arenas, Chile, but it was later rescinded. No testing for coronavirus is available on the ship, according to the statement.

"Since it is flu season, and COVID-19 testing is not available on board, it is difficult to determine the cause of these elevated cases at this time," the statement said.

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All 1,243 guests have been asked to stay in their staterooms as the ship sails to Fort Lauderdale. It is expected to dock March 30.

"The safety and well-being of our guests and crew is one of our highest priorities," the statement said.

There are 586 crew members on board. Those not required to operate the ship are in quarantine while those who are needed to maintain operations are self-isolating when not working.

Those who are experiencing symptoms have been isolated and their close contacts are in quarantine, according to the statement.

The Zaandam left from Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 7 and was scheduled to end in San Antonio, Chile, on March 21. The ship departed prior to the cruise line's March 17 decision to suspend all operations globally for 30 days.

No one has been off of the ship since March 14 in Punta Arenas when guests were told they could disembark for flights but then were later prohibited from leaving, the statement from Holland America said.

The ship was at anchor for several days in Valparaiso, Chile, while it took on more provisions and fuel before departing for Fort Lauderdale.

PatrickMcMurphy on March 24th, 2020 at 12:34 UTC »

They would like to have the people come off. I’d rather have the people stay [on the ship]. But I’d go with them. I told them to make the final decision. I would rather — because I like the numbers being where they are. I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.

damnthistrafficjam on March 24th, 2020 at 07:31 UTC »

Here we go again? Incidentally, this cruise left on the 7th of March, which was before the company decided to shut down operations. Although, certainly there was enough information to say further sailings were ill advised. It seems possible that they might not be allowed to port here. If so, they may face a very uncertain future of any country willing to take this on.

d01100100 on March 24th, 2020 at 07:30 UTC »

This is after seeing the CDC report on cruise ships.

A high proportion of asymptomatic infections could partially explain the high attack rate among cruise ship passengers and crew. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was identified on a variety of surfaces in cabins of both symptomatic and asymptomatic infected passengers up to 17 days after cabins were vacated on the Diamond Princess but before disinfection procedures had been conducted (Takuya Yamagishi, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, personal communication, 2020).

Yikes!