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CORONAVIRUS

COVID-19

Some Grand Princess passengers still waiting to disembark off the coast of Oakland

The Regal Princess cruise ship is shown docked, Tuesday, March 10, 2020, at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The Regal Princess and another cruise ship Caribbean Princess that left from Fort Lauderdale have been issued "no sail" orders by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after crew members who had possibly been exposed on a California ship were tested. The Regal Princess has since docked at the port, and passengers have been able to leave the ship. (Wilfredo Lee / AP)
By Arielle Dreher arielled@spokesman.com(509) 459-5467

Some passengers still on-board the Grand Princess cruise ship, docked in Oakland, are awaiting their disembarkation orders to one of four Air Force bases, including a local Spokane couple.

Nancy and David Holmes, a retired couple from Spokane, still were on-board the cruise ship as of Tuesday evening, and they still have not been told where they will go or where they will be taken.

The Grand Princess has been docked in Oakland since Monday, when disembarkation began for guests on-board. California residents will go to a federally operated facility for testing and isolation, while other cruise ship guests will be quarantined elsewhere. Crew members will be quarantined and treated on board the ship.

On March 4, Grand Princess staff alerted passengers that guests on the previous cruise had tested positive for COVID-19. By the next day passengers were confined to their rooms and have been ever since. There were 45 guests and crew members tested on board Grand Princess for COVID-19. Of those people tested, 21 people have tested positive, including 19 crew members and two guests.

There were 3,533 people, including 2,422 guests and 1,111 crew members on-board. After circling outside of San Francisco for several days, the Grand Princess docked in Oakland and began disembarkation for some passengers on Monday.

Arielle Dreher's reporting for The Spokesman-Review is primarily funded by the Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund, with additional support from Report for America and members of the Spokane community. These stories can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.