» At least 21 cases linked to cruise ship off California,
3,500 passengers in limbo off coast of California.
SAN FRANCISCO — Twenty-one people aboard a mammoth cruise ship off the California coast have tested positive for the new coronavirus, Vice President Mike Pence announced Friday, including 19 crew members.
Pence said the federal government is working with California officials on a plan to bring the ship to a non-commercial port this weekend and the 3,500 passengers and crew members will be tested for the virus.
Friday’s test results come amid evidence the vessel was the breeding ground for a deadly cluster of at least 10 cases during its previous voyage.
On Thursday, a military helicopter crew lowered test kits onto the 951-foot Grand Princess by rope and later retrieved them for analysis as the vessel waited off San Francisco, under orders to keep its distance from shore. Princess Cruises said 45 of the more than 3,500 people on board were tested. Results were expected as early as Friday.
Health officials trying to establish whether the virus is circulating on the Grand Princess 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 nine other people who were on the same excursion were also found to be infected. And some passengers from that trip stayed aboard for the current voyage.
“The ship will not come on shore until we appropriately assess the passengers,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday. Depending on what they find, authorities could order a quarantine of all or some of those aboard.
Another Princess cruise 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.
Meanwhile, the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 14, with all but one victim in Washington state, while the number of infections swelled to over 200, scattered across at least 18 states. Pennsylvania and Indiana reported their first cases.
On Wall Street, stocks went into another slide as fears mounted over the potential damage to the global economy from factory shutdowns, travel bans, quarantines and cancellations of events big and small. And President Donald Trump signed an $8.3 billion measure to help public health agencies deal with crisis and spur development of vaccines and treatments.
Worldwide, the virus has infected over 100,000 people and killed over 3,400, the vast majority of them in China. Most cases have been mild, and more than half of those infected have recovered.
Most of the dead in the U.S. were from suburban Seattle’s Life Care Center nursing home, now the subject of federal and state investigations that could lead to sanctions against it.