Coronavirus: Virus fear grips thousands stranded on cruise ship in US

Airmen arrive by helicopter to deliver test kits to the Grand Princess cruise ship off California coast. Pic /AFP

Coronavirus test results were expected on Friday for some passengers and crew aboard a cruise ship held off the California coast. Officials said there were 2,383 passengers and 1,100 crew on board the ship. The Grand Princess lay at anchor near San Francisco on Thursday after a traveller from a previous voyage died of the disease and at least four others became infected.

While the more than 3,500 aboard the 951-foot (290-meter) vessel were ordered to stay at sea as officials scrambled to keep the virus at bay, only 45 were identified for testing, Princess Cruises said in a statement. "The ship will not come on shore until we appropriately assess the passengers," California Gov. Gavin Newsom said.

A Sacramento-area man who sailed on the ship in February later succumbed to Coronavirus. Two other passengers from that voyage have been hospitalised with the virus in Northern California, and two Canadians who recently sailed aboard the ship tested positive after returning home, officials said. Northern California officials also are awaiting test results from a man who died Thursday after being on a cruise where others have tested positive.

US toll at 12

Meanwhile, the US death toll from the Coronavirus climbed to 12 on Thursday, with all but one victim in Washington state, while the number of infections swelled to over 200, scattered across 18 states. Colorado and Nevada reported their first cases. Nine of the dead were from the same suburban Seattle nursing home, now under federal investigation. Families of nursing home residents voiced anger, having received conflicting information about the condition of their loved ones.

One woman was told her mother had died, then got a call from a staffer who said her mother was doing well, only to find out she had, in fact, died, said Kevin Connolly, whose father-in-law is also a facility resident. "This is the level of incompetence we're dealing with," Connolly said at a news conference in Kirkland.

The federal investigation of the nursing home will determine whether it followed guidelines for preventing infections. Last April, the state fined it $67,000 over infection-control deficiencies after two flu outbreaks. US health officials said they expect a far lower death rate than the World Health Organisation's international estimate of 3.4 per cent" a high rate that doesn't account for mild cases that go uncounted.

US Assistant Secretary for Health Brett Giroir cited a model that included mild cases to say the US could expect a death rate somewhere between 0.1% - akin to the seasonal flu's - and 1 per cent. The risk is highest for older people and anyone with conditions such as heart or lung disease, diabetes or suppressed immune systems.

Some major businesses in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have circulated undetected for weeks, have shut down some operations or urged employees to work from home. That includes Microsoft and Amazon, the two tech giants that together employ more than 100,000 people in the region.

S Korea miffed with Japan

Seoul threatened to retaliate on Friday over what it called Tokyo's "irrational" plan to quarantine arrivals from South Korea over the Coronavirus outbreak, turning the scientific issue into a diplomatic row. The two countries have close economic ties and are both major US allies, democracies and market economies faced with a rising China and nuclear-armed North Korea. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday announced that foreign arrivals who have recently been in China or South Korea would be required to spend 14 days in quarantine.

This is not a drill: WHO

The World Health Organisation officials have warned that countries are not taking the Coronavirus crisis seriously enough. The WHO warned on Thursday that a "long list" of countries were not showing "the level of political commitment" needed to "match the level of the threat we all face". "This is not a drill," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters. "This epidemic is a threat for every country, rich and poor."

3,500
Approx no. of passengers, crew on board Grand Princess

1lakh
No. of people infected by COVID-19 globally as of now

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