US warns against cruises as medical team boards stricken ship

The U.S. is asking Americans to avoid cruise ships just as it prepares to move more than 3,000 passengers and crew off the Grand Princess vessel on Monday after at least 20 people on board were confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus.

Medical teams are entering the cruise ship, still held in open waters near Oakland, California, to assess the condition of passengers, California Governor Gavin Newsom said Sunday. Patients who are most acute with symptoms of the coronavirus and in need of hospitalization will be the first to leave when the ship docks in Oakland, while others will be quarantined at military bases across the country.

The advisory from the State Department comes after the Grand Princess, like a number of cruise ships around the world, became breeding grounds for the coronavirus, spreading as a large number of people gather in the same area for an extended period of time.

The State Department also extended the advisory to avoid crowded places in general, including long plane rides, for the elderly and sick.

“U.S. citizens, particularly travelers with underlying health conditions, should not travel by cruise ship,” it said. “This is a fluid situation,” it added, and Americans can’t rely on repatriation flights as the risk of quarantine by local authorities increases.

Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, was selected as the best site for the Grand Princess to drop anchor since it’s the easiest to seal off, securely move passengers toward their isolation destinations, and to protect the safety of the public, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said in a press release Sunday.

U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, in an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, said the passengers will not be released into the general public.

“We are not going to put infected people into communities,” he said. “Infected people will be quarantined, will be isolated appropriately so that we can make sure we’re not putting communities at risk.”

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It’s not clear what time the Grand Princess, filled with passengers from 54 countries, will dock on Monday. The vessel, carrying 2,421 passengers and 1,113 crew members, is about two hours away from the Oakland port, according to Newsom.

“The City of Oakland, Alameda County and the Port of Oakland are stepping up in a major way,” Newsom said in a statement. “They are showing the world what makes our state great -- coming to the rescue of thousands of people trapped aboard this ship and helping tackle a national emergency.”

Almost 1,000 passengers who are California residents will be sent to Travis Air Force Base, about 50 miles northeast of San Francisco, and Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego, for a 14-day quarantine.

Those from other states will be quarantined at Joint Base San Antonio Lackland in Texas or Dobbins Air Force Base in Georgia, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Sunday.

Carnival Corp.’s Grand Princess cruise ship, which traveled from San Francisco to Mexico in mid-February, also appears to be a hot spot for the spread of the virus in California.

The state’s first, and only, confirmed Covid-19 fatality so far involves a Placer County man who was on the ship last month. On Friday, Placer County public health officials confirmed three new cases, all related to the cruise ship.

Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas, whose district includes the Lackland base in San Antonio, said his community had been “placed on the front lines of this pandemic without adequate federal support.”

“It is essential that these additional evacuees be confined to Lackland for all testing and treatment rather than burdening local hospitals,” the Democratic lawmaker said in a statement.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee said that she was proud of Oakland for stepping to aid the trapped people on the ship.