A Cruise Ship Comes to Florida

The scientists only wants to take state residents that are on the ship, and the Coast Guard has said that the ships must stay out at sea with a sick on board. A plan is still being worked out for what to do, even as another sick cruise ship also plans to make its way there. Samantha Gross, reporter at the Miami Herald, joins us for more. Thanks for joining us, Samantha, I wanted to talk about these cruise ships that are

on their way to South Florida there. This is the zen Dam and the Rotterdam cruise ships from Holland America. One ship, the Rotterdam, has a healthy passengers and the zend M has people that have been reporting flu like symptoms. I think there have been four debts on that ship

to that they said had COVID nineteen. And these ships have been turned away from port all over the world right now, and they're heading to Florida, and there hasn't been a deal cut yet with whether they're gonna they're gonna allow them to dock there and to get anybody off the ship there. Semantha tell us the latest. What do we know what's going on here? Yeah, so both ships are traveling at around twenty one knots, which could put them um near South Florida by about one am

tomorrow morning. Um, they're kind of rounding Cuba this morning, so they're headed towards South Florida. But there still isn't a concrete plan as to what's going to happen to them. Um, they're about twelve passengers on board both ships, and you know at least nine aboard are sick, and so they're they're trying to make some plans for them, but there hasn't been anything finalized yet, which is a cost for

concern for a lot of people. As we've seen with other cruise ships, most notably the one that docked in Japan when they had a bunch of people that were sick with coronavirus. It becomes this kind of breeding ground for it. So the longer that they stay on this ship, the possibility increases that they might come down with this.

Governor RHN De Santis has said that he'd be willing to take residents from Florida off of the ship first, but they really don't want anybody to come onto shore because they just feel it's gonna overwhelm the health system there. That's right, and there is a cost for concern there. I mean Broward County, where Port Everglades is is a

hot spot of COVID nineteen cases in Florida. South Florida has more than half of the cases statewide, and so people are definitely worried about draining resources here considering, um, you know, the hospital system is already starting to see kind of an influx in patients. Um, they want to preserve the health care system, but of course there are so many people who are going to need how and so I think they're trying to arrange a plan for getting those people home to where they can get care. Okay,

I have this question. I'm sure everybody's asking it in their heads. Why are people even on these cruise ships? Why are they sailing? I mean, we saw what was happening with the very first ships in Japan and it was a mess there, So why would people put themselves in these situations? Again, I know that these ships are both coming from South America, right right, So the crews were you know, from South America and they left on March eighth, and so that was kind of before the

state had kind of taken this more seriously. Before there were a lot of more warnings about trouble and fight cancelations and things like that, and so a lot of the people who were on this ship's thought that things were okay when they were boarding, but obviously in the

last month things have taken quite a dive. So, um, you know a lot of these people have been on these ships for a really long time, and that's you know, part of why it is troublesome that they've you know, they're getting sick and they're in this kind of confined space. But the cruise, you know, was supposed to end in Chile on March. It was of March eight cruise. So what I've been seeing also is that the people that were sick were on the Zendam cruise ship, so they

dispatched the Rotterdam to take healthy passengers off. Is that ship still not being allowed to talk also, even though they're saying that people are healthy on that ship. Yeah, both ships are kind of in flux right now. Both ships are headed towards Port Everglades, and it's it's unclear, you know, what they're going to do. Um. You know, people who were in exhibiting symptoms on the Zandam were

taken onto the sister ship, the Rotterdam. But that doesn't necessarily mean that all those people aren't carrying the virus. You know. I think there's a lot of concern of asymptomatic people who have been in contact with folks who were showing symptoms. So they're taking precaution for both ships, and they're saying that they're are some people that are seriously ill. The ships do have doctors and nurses and some medical facilities they're on board. That's correct. Yeah, there

are infirmaries on board. Um. Someone I talked to you yesterday, her dad has been given antibiotic pills to kind of help him. He's really sick. He has pneumonia. UM. And you know, obviously people who are sick are getting as much help as they can, but it's not the same as being in a on land hospital where you have access to IV medication and you know, just more resources,

more bads available. Yeah. I think the people that you're referring to also, they're stuck in a room that has no windows, so they're quarantined in there, and they've been there. I think they've had like a fever for ten days or something they reported. Those are some tough situations to be in right there. And we're also hearing that this is not the only two ships that are headed there.

There's also another Princess Cruises it's called the Coral Princess is on its way also probably won't get there until maybe about Saturday or so, but they're also looking to hopefully dock there in that area. Right um, I think you know, with those ships, they're hoping that there will

be a plan in place by the time that they come. Um. Right now, there have been plans that have been floated past the Broward County Commission on how to handle these passengers, and it's my understanding that whatever plan they end up putting into place would apply to any other incoming ships

that would need to dock at Portific place. I'm over here in California, and a couple of weeks ago, I guess, there was a cruise ship that came down and they had this very orderly fashion and took a few days, obviously because there were so many people, but they took people out. They sent those that need to go to hospitals to hospitals, and then everybody else kind of got shipped back home. Basically, they flew them back to their own places. Does it seem that this is what's going

to happen here? And really Florida has no other choice, I mean, where else do these people go? But kind of being stuck out at sea if nobody else wants them, which is kind of the case it's been already, right. So the plans I was floated that we're ultimately rejected by the Broward County Commission included chartered flights that we're going to be paid for by Carnival to send people all over the world. You know, there's quite a few

you know, foreign nationals that are on the ship. Um, and so they had chartered flights that were supposed to go all over the world. I assume that whatever plan they do get in place would include some similar travel plans. Um it also allowed for people in Florida to be returned to their cars or to rent a car via you know, kind of secured ground transportation that Carnival would provide. Samantha Gross, reporter at the Miami Herald, thank you very

much for joining us. Thanks. I'm Oscar Ramiers and this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday. So follow us on I Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts