6,000 passengers held on cruise ship in Italy amid concern over coronavirus

An estimated 6,000 passengers and crew are being held onboard the Costa Smeralda cruise ship while medical teams run diagnostic tests on a 54-year-old of Chinese nationality and a traveling companion who have been quarantined, the Italian cruise line confirmed to USA TODAY. 

The quarantine comes amid concerns about the coronavirus outbreak, which originated in Wuhan, China. 

The traveling companions reportedly boarded the ship on Jan. 25 in Savona, Italy, and one of them developed fevers and difficulty breathing, according to a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly.

The Costa Smeralda is currently docked at the port of Civitavecchia, located about 50 miles northwest of Rome, according to the cruise ship tracking website Vesselfinder. Its itinerary also took passengers to Marseilles, France, and the Spanish ports of Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca.

Because the ship is operating under a sanitary protocol to isolate the sick passengers, none of the passengers or crew onboard are being allowed to disembark while medical teams run tests on the passenger, the source said. It will likely take a few hours for the medical team to confirm the test results. 

But Eric Cioe Peña, the director of global health for Northwell Health in Hyde Park, New York, questioned the wisdom of keeping everyone onboard the Smeralda while they await the results.

Quarantining the entire ship, he told USA TODAY, “is only a good idea if they can ensure that a potential virus won’t spread quickly amongst cruise ship passengers. It is much safer to home-quarantine potential cases with no symptoms, as you (separate) the healthy (from) the sick. Otherwise, you risk 6,000 cases from spreading through a cruise ship.”  

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What is a sanitary protocol?

Costa Cruises’ sanitary protocol steps, which are under the auspices of the Italian health authorities, are unclear. But for U.S. vessels, the Centers for Disease Control procedure for suspected cases of influenza-like illnesses (people with a fever over 100℉ and a cough or sore throat) is to notify the ship infirmary as soon as possible and isolate the sick passenger or crew member in their cabin until at least 24 hours after their fever dissipates. 

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If the sick person must leave the cabin, he or she is advised to and stay at least six feet from other people and wear a surgical mask (or cover the nose and mouth with tissues if no masks are available). 

If it becomes necessary to take the person to a hospital, the facility should be warned in advance of the patient’s arrival.

After disembarking, the CDC recommends that the sick individual remain at home or a hotel near the port until at least 24 hours after their fever breaks before traveling on further.

Passengers and crew who come into contact with the sick person are advised to monitor their own health for up to five days after exposure.

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Costa cancels nine China cruises out of coronavirus concerns

Costa, which is owned by Carnival, has already canceled nine different sailings to China.

Since Jan. 20, there have been 7,700 cases of coronavirus reported worldwide, and 170 people have died from the illness, according to Chinese officials.

So far, there have been five confirmed cases in the United States: two in California and one in Illinois, Arizona and Washington State, respectively.

Europe has 10 confirmed cases: five in France, four in Germany and one in Finland.

Meanwhile, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin has signed a decree closing his country’s 2,600-mile-long border with China, Sputnik News, a domestic media outlet, and the Associated Press reported Thursday. All train traffic between the two countries was also stopped Thursday, except for one train connecting Moscow and Beijing.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the list of countries outside of China and the U.S. with confirmed cases includes  Australia, Cambodia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, the United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.

Last week, the World Health Organization classified coronavirus, which is officially known as 2019-nCoV, as an emergency in China but declined to designate it a world-wide emergency. The WHO reconvened experts in Geneva on Thursday to reassess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency. 

Upon returning from Beijing, The WHO’s chief of emergencies, Michael Ryan, estimated the death rate of the new virus at 2% but said the figure was very preliminary. With fluctuating numbers of cases and deaths, scientists are only able to produce a rough estimate of the fatality rate, and it’s likely many milder cases of the virus are being missed.

In comparison, the SARS virus killed about 10% of the people it infected. The new virus is from the coronavirus family, which includes those that can cause the common cold as well as more serious illnesses such as SARS and MERS.

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