Coast Guard directs cruise ships with infected passengers to stay offshore 'indefinitely'

The Hill ^ | 04 01 2020 | Justine Coleman

[yesthatjallen]

The Coast Guard is directing cruise ships with passengers that may be infected with coronavirus to stay offshore “indefinitely” and prepare to treat passengers aboard their ships, according to a safety bulletin issued Sunday.

The Coast Guard’s new regulations mandate all ships in U.S. waters with more than 50 people give daily updates on their medical caseloads or face civil or criminal punishment. Coast Guard Rear Admiral E.C. Jones, whose district covers Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Puerto Rico, signed the bulletin preventing ship evacuations.

“This is necessary as shore-side medical facilities may reach full capacity and lose the ability to accept and effectively treat additional critically-ill patients,” the memo said. “A potential evacuee has better access to comfortable surroundings and the medical staff on board the foreign passenger vessel where care is already being provided.”

Foreign-flagged vessels “that loiter beyond U.S. territorial seas” should first attempt to evacuate passengers through their countries, the regulations say. Many of South Florida’s cruise ships are registered in the Bahamas, a country with limited hospital capacity, The Associated Press noted.

SNIP

[noiseman]

Hurricane season will be interesting this year.

[Rebelbase]

Per Joe Bastardi there will be 3 or 4 major storms this year.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Just sit right back and we’ll hear a tale
A tale of a fateful trip...

[shelterguy]

Great deals available on cruises.

Pay for the first week, the rest of the year is free.

[PGR88]

Its probably a good idea.

Cruise ships are Petri dishes and given its probably a lot of older passengers, off-loading them and sending them scurrying home or to hospitals all over North America would be a huge vector for the virus. Trying to quarantine them all would be another huge effort.

Cruise ships have doctors and small hospitals, don’t they? Drop them swab kits for testing, and Hydrochloroquine and Azithromycin and zinc tablets to treat those who are ill.

After 14-21 days, they’ll all have immunity, then we can test them for antibodies. Same with the Teddy Roosevelt.

We can learn a lot about coronavirus from these two floating experiments.

[Chgogal]

Bookmark

[DoodleDawg]

How are you going to get food to them?

[fella]

I’m not sure if cruise ships are designed to be resupplied at sea.

[Ann Archy]

CRUEL and DISGUSTING and NOT AMERICAN!!!

Gov. De Santis is HORRIBLE!!! And I VOTED for him, but this is STUPID and CRUEL!!

[pnz1]

Wow, thought I read there are 4 or more ships waiting to enter Port Everglades..

[Lurker]

So how many are you going to take in?

L

[Ouderkirk]

Not to seem heartless but shouldn’t they be heading to their FLAGGED home ports.?

[WildHighlander57]

Bookmarking...

[Justa]

Heading to their flagged home ports has some issues. These are same/same port excursions. Many passengers travel only with their drivers license and birth certificate. They require special authorization to re-enter the US from another country as their passports either don’t exist or may not have been properly reported as leaving the US.

[Kirkwood]

They’ll be quarantined for at least 2 weeks anyway if they were dropped off. I would rather be quarantined on the ship for a few weeks than inside a tent at some govt facility.

[Balding_Eagle]

President Trump was going to speak to him immediately following the press conference yesterday.

Hang on a bit, we may find something better has been figured out. Trump talked about the humanitarian apart of this problem.

[George from New England]

“Many passengers travel only with their drivers license and birth certificate.”

NOT ON THIS SAILING

They all had to fly to get on. All will have passports. 100%

[Guenevere]

Do you live in Florida?

[rxsid]

"How are you going to get food to them?"

 

"PACIFIC OCEAN (Nov. 9, 2010) An HH-60H Sea Hawk helicopter from the Black Knights of Helicopter Anti-Submarine Squadron (HS) 4 embarked aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) delivers pallets of supplies to the Carnival cruise ship C/V Splendor. Ronald Reagan was diverted from its training maneuvers at the direction of Commander, U.S. 3rd Fleet, and at the request of the U.S. Coast Guard, to a position near the Carnival cruise ship C/V Splendor. Ronald Reagan is facilitating the delivery of 4,500 pounds of supplies to CV Splendor after the cruise ship became stranded 150 nautical miles southwest of San Diego early Monday."