Officials: Holland America cruise ships caught in COVID-19 pandemic can dock in Florida
Holland America has reached a deal with authorities that will allow the cruise line to dock two of its ships, the MS Zaandam and MS Rotterdam, at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
“It’s my understanding that the unified command has now reached an agreement with Broward County to allow the folks [on board] to disembark,” Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis told USA TODAY Thursday. “We were made privy of the details yesterday, and we’re hopeful that this new protocol that they’ve agreed to will sufficiently insulate our people in Fort Lauderdale at risk of [contracting] the disease.”
Four elderly passengers on the Zaandam died. Two of the four deaths on board the Zaandam have been blamed on COVID-19, and nine people have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the cruise line said.
Between the Zaandam and Rotterdam a total of 97 passengers and 136 crew members have presented flu-like symptoms since March 22, according to a Holland America statement provided by spokesperson Sally Andrews. Symptoms of the flu and COVID-19, the coronavirus sweeping the globe, are similar.Â
Passengers who passed a health screening were transferred to the Rotterdam last weekend. The passengers on board both ships will be put into three basic categories, Trantalis explained.
The first group, which includes around 1,200 passengers who are asymptomatic, will be allowed to disembark Friday or Saturday. Then they will be taken in chartered buses directly to the airport tarmac, where they will board charter flights. They will also go through separate customs and border patrol processes.Â
“That way, they won’t infect anyone along the way,” Trantalis said.
Passengers have been isolated in their rooms since March 22 unless they made a transfer to the Rotterdam from the Zaandam, when they would have been on a tender between the two ships for a brief period.
The second group, containing 45 symptomatic passengers, according to Trantalis, will remain on board the ship. All those passengers will be required to quarantine on board. Once they are asymptomatic for 72 hours, they will be allowed to disembark under the same protocol as the first group.
And the third group, made up of only nine people, contains eight passengers and one crew member in need of critical care. All nine will be taken off the ship. “Our local hospital system is willing and prepared to take them in,” Trantalis said.
The rest of the crew will remain on board.
Trantalis also announced the agreement on social media, and shared some of his thoughts on the deal.
Officials had initially been apprehensive about the possibility of the ships docking in Fort Lauderdale given the risk that it could pose to the community and the potential to spread coronavirus due to the confirmed coronavirus caseson board the MS Zaandam.
“We’re assuming people who get sick have COVID,” William Burke, chief maritime officer of Carnival Corp., which owns Holland America Line, said Tuesday during a Broward County Commission meeting, though only nine had tested positive at the time.
Trantalis said that regulations in the agreement allowing the ships to dock will provide “strong safeguards” to the community.
“I met yesterday with the president of Holland America to share these concerns,” Trantalis wrote. “Holland America agreed to a strict set set of protocols if the county decided to allow the ships to dock.”
“They are representing to us that these protocols are intended to protect our community by ensuring there is no contact with local residents,” Broward County Commissioner Barbara Sharief wrote on Facebook. “The vast majority of passengers are not ill and have no symptoms. They will be placed on private chartered buses, taken directly to the airport tarmac and board chartered flights out of our community. A small number of critically ill passengers will go to local hospitals. Others who are mildly ill or have symptoms will be quarantined at sea on the ships until they recover.”
Ready to disembark
Passengers on board the MS Zaandam and the MS Rotterdam who have been in limbo for more than a week were readying to leave the ship on Thursday.
On Wednesday night, Faye and Ed Hoover, among the passengers on board the Rotterdam received a message: Pack your bags.
“We’ve been told already last night to have our luggage ready to go this morning and to fill out the health forms and get our passports ready,” Ed told USA TODAY Thursday afternoon. “We’re sitting here waiting.”
On board the Zaandam, Andrea Bergmann Anderson, who had not been able to make the transfer to the Rotterdam with healthy passengers due to an earlier reported sinus infection, received a similar message.
“We have packed our checked bags and put them out in the hall. This afternoon we will be called down for a wellness check,” she said. “That is our last hurdle.”
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Contributing: The Associated Press
