A day later, the company said in a statement that 45 people were not well enough to travel and would remain on board, and “less than 10” required hospitalization.
County commissioners
“I have a big trust issue,” said Mark D. Bogen, a county commissioner.
The coronavirus crisis exploded aboard Carnival’s Diamond Princess in Japan, where more than 700 got sick. The Grand Princess had to send its passengers to multiple quarantines around the United States. Carnival evacuated several hundred supposedly healthy Americans and Canadians who were on the Costa Luminosa; they then flew commercial flights home and many promptly got sick. At least one person died.
Carnival has agreed to transfer any passengers evacuated from the Zaandam and Rotterdam directly to the airport tarmac on sanitized buses. But the authorities rejected an initial plan Carnival submitted that called for some 52 Zaandam passengers to be driven to their homes in Florida and another 200 to fly commercial flights throughout the United States. Under that plan, the rest would be flown to the West Coast and Europe by charter. More than 100 Australians would fly by private charter to the West Coast, and take commercial flights from there, Mr. Burke said.
A team of local, federal, public health, port and law enforcement authorities advising the commissioners said the company’s plan was not sufficient and initially denied permission for the ship to enter U.S. waters.
“We are the United States of America. We have never turned away people in need or those that are sick,” said Gregory Tony, the Broward County sheriff. “But these are very, very critical circumstances.”