A cruise ship with hundreds onboard is being held off the Northern California coast until passengers are tested for coronavirus after the state reported that its first resident to die of the virus had apparently contracted it on a cruise, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday.
Officials said an elderly patient who had underlying health conditions and died at a hospital in Roseville had tested positive for the virus after getting off the Grand Princess cruise ship in San Francisco back in February.
Some 60 other guests who were on the same ship when it sailed from San Francisco to Mexico with the patient had remained on board for a trip to Hawaii. That cruise was cut short and will eventually return to San Francisco.
The Grand Princess cruise ship is now under investigation as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention probe a “small cluster” of patients who were aboard, according to the cruise line.
Another passenger who contracted the COVID-19 virus is now in stable condition at a hospital in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco.
Health officials believe both cruise ship patients were exposed while they were on the Grand Princess cruise from San Francisco to Mexico from Feb. 11 to Feb. 21.
Officials from Grand Princess released a statement Wednesday urging guests who had sailed with them and were experiencing any symptoms of acute respiratory illness to seek medical attention.
“We have shared essential travel and health data with the CDC to facilitate their standard notification to the State and County health authorities to follow up with individuals who may have been exposed to people who became ill,” the statement reads.
Newsom said more than half of 2,500 aboard the February cruise, which docked in San Francisco, are California residents who got off the ship and spread out to different counties.
The governor said California will be flying hundreds of test kits out to the ship. The tests can be conducted in a San Francisco Bay Area lab and it should take about four hours before results are back.
“There’s a reason that we didn’t want the ship in the Port of San Francisco and in the state of California at this time,” Newsom said.
The cruise ship is at sea but is expected to skip its next port and return to San Francisco by Thursday, according to a statement from Dr. Grant Tarling, the chief medical officer for the Carnival Corp., which operates the Grand Princess. Any current passengers who were also on the February trip will be screened.
Newsom said the cruise ship, with hundreds of people aboard, will be held offshore until passengers can be tested.
“The ship will not come on shore until we appropriately assess the passengers,” he said.
The CDC is working with California authorities to contact other passengers from the previous trip, CDC Director Robert Redfield said Wednesday at a White House briefing.
“We’re at the very beginning of that, looking at the manifest to make sure that we understand who has gotten off the cruise and where they got off the cruise,” Redfield said.