Anti-virus actions leave cruise passengers adrift
BEIJING — Cruise ships looked for safe harbor on four continents Saturday as fears arose that they are spreading the new coronavirus that has infected more than 100,000 people worldwide.
Iran declared a “sacred jihad” against the virus, while riot police mobilized on the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus where virus tensions flared. Italy had its biggest one-day jump in infections, prompting the government to shut down the country’s north, and the Vatican decided to livestream the pope’s blessing today to prevent people from gathering at St. Peter’s Square.
“We are facing an emergency, a national emergency,” Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said in announcing the government decree in a news conference today.
He called the measures “very rigorous” but necessary to contain the contagion and ease the burden on Italy’s
strained health care system. He said people traveling out of, or around, the lockeddown areas would have the “obligation” to explain why to authorities.
“This is the moment of self-responsibility,” he said.
In the U.S. on Saturday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directed the Florida emergency management agency to activate at the next level to provide critical resources to the state and county health departments after two people who tested positive for the vi- rus died there.
The deaths mark the first on the East Coast attributed to the outbreak in the U.S., health officials said.
The U.S. death toll from the virus climbed to 19, with all but three of the victims in Washington state. The number of infections swelled to 400, scattered across about half of the U.S. states. Pennsylvania, Indiana, Minnesota, Kansas, Kentucky, Nebraska, Missouri and Washington D.C., reported their first cases.
On Saturday, passengers and crews aboard the cruise ships off California, Malaysia, Egypt and Malta were tested or confined to cabins, and questions grew about the future of the whole industry.
As more and more countries are getting ready for virus cases, new trouble struck China on Saturday, where a hotel housing people who had contact with the virus collapsed, trapping 70 people inside, according to news reports.
Western countries increasingly are imitating China — where the virus first emerged late last year, and which has suffered the vast majority of infections — by imposing travel controls and shutting down public events.
After the city of Venice canceled Carnival and governments warned citizens against travel to Italy, the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak, the country is facing a possible recession. Hotel occupancy rates in the lagoon city are down to 2% or less.
PASSENGERS WANT OFF
Officials in California were deciding Saturday where to dock the Grand Princess cruise ship, after 21 people aboard tested positive for the virus. There is evidence the ship, now idling off San Francisco, was the breeding ground for a cluster of almost 20 cases during an earlier voyage.
People on social media pleaded Saturday with elected officials to let the ship dock. In an interview with The Associated Press, passenger Karen Dever of Moorestown, N.J., agreed that she should be tested for coronavirus but wants officials to let her go if her results are negative.
“Fourteen more days on this ship, I think by the end I will need a mental health visit,” she said with a laugh.
State authorities were working with federal officials to move the ship to a noncommercial port over the weekend and test the 3,500 people aboard.
“Those that will need to be quarantined will be quarantined,” Vice President Mike Pence said Saturday during a meeting in Florida with cruise line executives. “Those who will require medical help will receive it.”
President Donald Trump has said he would have preferred not to let the passengers disembark onto American soil but that he would defer to medical experts.
Princess Cruises said in an email Saturday that a critically ill passenger was taken from the ship to a medical facility for treatment unrelated to the virus.
In Egypt, a cruise ship on the Nile with more than 150 people aboard was under quarantine in the southern city of Luxor after 45 positive tests.
A Taiwanese-American tourist who had previously been on the same ship tested positive when she returned to Taiwan, the World Health Organization informed Egyptian authorities, who then tested everyone on the ship.
At a news conference in Cairo later Saturday, Health Minister Hala Zayed said 33 others tested positive for the virus. Of the 45 infected passengers and crew, 19 are foreigners, officials said.
Also Saturday, the port of Penang in Malaysia turned away the cruise ship Costa Fortuna because 64 of the 2,000 people aboard are from Italy. The ship had already been rejected by Thailand, and is now heading to Singapore.
And in Malta, which reported its first case of the virus Saturday, the MSC Opera ship agreed not to enter the Mediterranean country’s port — even though there are no infections suspected on board. The ship continued to Messina, Sicily, where passengers were allowed to disembark after officials reviewed medical records.
LATIN AMERICA DEATH
While the global death toll has risen past 3,400, more people have now recovered from the virus than are sickened by it.
As of Saturday, nearly 90,000 cases have been reported in Asia; more than 8,000 in Europe; some 6,000 in the Mideast; about 400 in North America; about 50 in Latin America and the Caribbean, and fewer than 50 cases reported so far in Africa.
Argentina health authorities on Saturday announced the first death in Latin America.
While many scientists say the world is clearly in the grips of a pandemic — a serious global outbreak — the World Health Organization isn’t calling it that yet, saying the word might spook the world further.
The virus is still much less widespread than annual flu epidemics, which cause up to 5 million severe cases around the world and up to 650,000 deaths annually, according to the health organization.
In Iran, more than 1,000 infections were confirmed overnight, raising the country’s total to 5,823 cases, including 145 deaths.
South Korea, the hardest-hit country outside China, reported 448 new cases, taking the total to 7,041, with 48 deaths overall.
Italy has had its biggest daily increase in coronavirus cases since the outbreak broke out in the northern part of the country on Feb. 21. In its daily update, Italy’s civil protection agency said the number of people with the coronavirus rose by 1,247 in 24 hours, taking the total to 5,883. Another 36 people also died, raising the virus death total to 233.
China reported 99 new cases on Saturday and 28 new fatalities.
Saudi Arabia banned spectators at any sports competitions starting Saturday. The NBA and British sports teams are considering the same.
“I ain’t playing if I ain’t got the fans in the crowd,” Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James said.
The Saudi kingdom has five confirmed cases, and has halted all pilgrimages in Mecca, Islam’s holiest site.
Elsewhere in the region, the United Arab Emirates reported 15 additional coronavirus cases Saturday, raising the number of infections in the country to 45. The United Arab Emirates has suspended schools, nurseries and universities for a month. It also has stopped flights to Iran and has limited flights to China.
Austria confiscated 21,000 disposable masks that a Turkish company smuggled aboard a tour bus, seeking to profit from soaring demand.
ECONOMIC DAMAGE
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is urging older adults and people with severe medical conditions to “stay home as much as possible” and avoid crowds.
Most people who get the virus have mild cases, though older people face greater risks. Among the many new cases in Europe on Saturday was a doctor in Slovenia who, after a ski trip to neighboring Italy, had contact with more than 100 people in a nursing home.
Global markets are enjoying a weekend respite from investor panic, but the world economy faces mounting damage. China, the world’s biggest trader, reported Saturday that its exports tumbled 17.2% from a year earlier in January and February.
Major U.S. professional sports leagues are considering a ban on reporters and other non-necessary personnel from locker rooms, according to people familiar with the matter.
Most big U.S. sporting events are still going ahead as planned. The NCAA reaffirmed Friday that games shouldn’t be canceled, and Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia said that the Masters Tournament will be played next month.
Information for this article was contributed by Joe McDonald, Angela Charlton, Daisy Nguyen, Janie Har, Maggie Michael, Samy Magdy, Colleen Barry, Tong-hyung Kim, Eileen Ng, Nasser Karimi, Joe Wilson, Dusan Stojanovic, Karel Janicek, David Rising, Henry Hou, Olga Rodriguez, Julie Walker, Tom Strong, Gene Johnson, Martha Bellisle, Carla K. Johnson, Adriana Gomez Licon, Rachel La Corte and Aya Batrawy of The Associated Press; by Justin Sink, Lizette Chapman, John Follain, Angelina Rascouet, Thomas Gualtieri, Karl Maier, Joao Lima and Marton Eder of Bloomberg News; and by Jason Horowitz of The New York Times.