Hey, Do You Remember…the Cruise Ships?
On January 25th, 2020 a 16-year-old cruise ship registered in the UK operated by Princess Cruises called the Diamond Princess that had been sailing around Hong Kong and Vietnam let some passengers disembark. On February 1st, the captain was alerted by the Hong Kong government that one of those passengers had tested positive for that creepy new virus that was going around.
The captain waited 48 hours to tell the remaining passengers and crew. At 11 PM on February 3rd, the captain made an announcement. Everyone should return to their quarters.
By February 10th, 10 people remaining on board tested positive for corona virus. At this time, the virus was still considered to be an issue localized to China. There were over 2500 passengers on board the Diamond Princess when the ship was quarantined off Japan.
“Don’t worry,” cruise experts said. “It’s probably going to be ok.”
But no one really knew what was going on or how to quarantine. For the first days, crew delivered three meals a day on reusable china plates face-to-face to passengers without changing their gloves. And, when the plates were cleared, the crew wore no personal protective equipment. The crew, however, was still eating together in a communal mess hall.
Over 700 people eventually tested positive on the Diamond Princess. They were quarantined for three weeks.
On February 21st, the Grand Princess, operated by the same company, set sail from San Francisco. Knowing that the Diamond was stuck in Japan, the company required passengers getting on the Grand to do a health screening. It consisted of three questions asking folks to self-report if they were feeling peaky. Little did the passengers know that on the Grand’s last trip, a dude disembarked in San Francisco with a bad respiratory illness. He later became California’s first COVID fatality. A bunch of the crew that had sailed with him remained on board for the outbound trip on the 21st.
On March 5th, folks were told to stay in their rooms and a National Guard helicopter dropped COVID test kits on deck.
By March, the CDC was reporting that cruise ship passengers accounted for around 17 percent of the reported US COVID cases. On March 14th, they issued a no sail order for cruise chips in the US. Ships around the world were refused entry to ports.
Stuck in their cabins, folks on the ships entertained themselves by making clothes out of paper bags and folding paper airplanes. Crew members fashioned homemade hazmat suits. People ran out of their prescription medicine.
The last three major ships still carrying passengers didn’t dock until the week of April 20th and while passengers were allowed to trot down the gangway, often employees were still trapped on the ship, sometimes without pay. The US Coast guard reported that in early May there were almost 60,000 crew members stuck on ships in and around the US and the Caribbean. Folks intentionally dove overboard. Some killed themselves.
One ship delivered its last eight customers on June 8th. The trip started in December of 2019!
Were you stuck on a ship during COVID?
To submit your own story, email us at heycanwetalkaboutcovid@gmail.com.
Sources include
A CNN article by Francesca Street
A Boston University article by Leora Lanz
A Guardian article by Erin McCormick
