Cruise ships face no warm welcome in Florida
Fort Lauderdale mayor: Situation ‘unacceptable’
Holland America’s MS Zaandam and MS Rotterdam cruise ships – one with ill people on board – are headed to Florida. Several government officials, including Gov. Ron DeSantis, are concerned about the ships’ plans to head to Fort Lauderdale.
The cruise line said late Sunday night the Panama Canal Authority granted permission for the ships to transit the canal. Panama’s Ministry of Health gave its permission Saturday.
Four elderly passengers on the Zaandam died, though the causes of death have not been disclosed; 73 guests and 116 crew members reported flu-like symptoms. Symptoms of the flu and coronavirus are similar. The COVID-19 coronavirus has sickened more than 745,000 people and killed more than 35,000 worldwide as of Monday morning. Of the symptomatic passengers who were tested, two tested positive for COVID-19.
DeSantis said it would be “a mistake” to bring the cruise ship passengers into South Florida for treatment because the state already has a high number of coronavirus infections and that number is growing. He said the area’s hospital beds need to be saved for residents and not “foreign nationals.”
“We would like to have medical personnel dispatched to the ship,” he said. He wants the cruise line to arrange that.
Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis expressed his frustration about the ships’ impending arrival in Florida in several social media posts.
“No assurances have been given that they will be escorted from the ship to either a treatment facility or placed in quarantine. This is completely unacceptable!!” Trantalis wrote in a Facebook post Sunday afternoon.
Trantalis suggested the ships could dock at a Navy base elsewhere on the Eastern Seaboard, explaining that Fort Lauderdale’s Port Everglades “sits in the very middle of a vast urban area.” He said the city would accept the ship only under, “at a minimum, the same protocols as were followed several weeks ago when a cruise ship of sick people docked at the Port of Oakland in California.”
The Grand Princess cruise ship docked in Oakland on March 9 after the ship reported 21 coronavirus cases.
“There needs to be stringent separation procedures,” Trantalis continued in the post about Holland America. “Foreign nationals must be triaged and as soon as possible put on planes destined for their own country. Sick Americans must be taken to hospitals that are not already facing the possibility of being overwhelmed by local COVID-19 carriers. And, healthy, non-symptomatic American passengers must be taken to close by military bases or similar destinations for quarantine.”
Two Costa Cruises ships, the Costa Magica and the Costa Favolosa, were anchored off the coast of Florida, near the port of Miami on Thursday with ill crew members on board.
Both vessels received permission from port and health officials to anchor and sent boats to shore, Roger Frizzell, spokesperson for Carnival Cruise Line, parent company for Costa Cruises, told USA TODAY.