Four Royal Caribbean cruise passengers taken to New Jersey hospital for coronavirus testing
.JPG "The cruise ship Anthem of the Seas is docked at the Cape Liberty Cruise Port on Friday, Feb. 7, 2020, in Bayonne, N.J. Passengers were screened, as a precaution, for coronavirus.")
Four people on board Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas cruise ship were taken to a hospital in New Jersey Friday morning after federal health authorities screened about two dozen people on board for coronavirus.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told ABC 7 in New York that two of the people transferred to the hospital traveled to China recently and have respiratory symptoms. The other two are members of the same family who are not showing any symptoms, but are being evaluated further as a precaution.
The cruise ship arrived in New Jersey Friday morning as scheduled after an 11-day trip to the Caribbean.
Royal Caribbean has delayed the ship’s next cruise by one day, now departing Saturday. “We have also been cleared by authorities to depart on our next cruise as usual. However, to reassure concerned guests, we will delay our departure until tomorrow, when we expect to receive conclusive test results from CDC,” the company said in a statement.
Royal Caribbean said none of the four passengers sent to the hospital shows symptoms of the virus, though one had tested positive on board for Influenza A. According to Royal Caribbean’s records, the passengers had not visited China since Jan. 26.
The ship can hold nearly 5,000 passengers and 1,500 crew members.
The coronavirus is a respiratory illness that has killed more than 630 people worldwide and has infected more than 31,000 people across 29 countries, including the United States, since it was first identified in Wuhan, China, in December. Twelve people have tested positive for the coronavirus in the United States. None of the confirmed cases are in Florida.
The cruise industry’s lobbying organization, Cruise Lines International Association, said in a statement Friday that cruise companies will deny boarding to anyone who has visited China in the past 14 days.
More than 3,500 cruise passengers and crew members are quarantined on Carnival Corporation’s Diamond Princess cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, outside Tokyo, until Feb. 19. Sixty-one people have been diagnosed with the virus on board and transferred to hospitals.
Japan is not allowing another Carnival Corp. cruise ship, the Holland America Line’s Westerdam, to visit the country as scheduled. The Westerdam ship was scheduled to visit several Japanese cities and pick up new passengers in Yokohama, outside Tokyo, on Feb. 15.
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 10:53 AM.
