Passengers aboard a cruise ship off the California coast were instructed to stay in their cabins as they awaited test results Friday that could show whether the coronavirus is circulating among the more than 3,500 people aboard.
A military helicopter crew lowered test kits onto the 951-foot (290-meter) Grand Princess by rope and later retrieved them for analysis at a lab as the vessel lay at sea off San Francisco, under orders to keep its distance from shore. Princess Cruises said 45 people were selected for testing.
Authorities undertook the testing after a passenger on a previous voyage of the ship died of the coronavirus and at least four others became infected.
"The ship will not come on shore until we appropriately assess the passengers," California Governor Gavin Newsom said.
Another Princess cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, was quarantined for two weeks in Yokohama, Japan, last month because of the virus, and ultimately about 700 of the 3,700 people aboard became infected in what experts pronounced a public-health failure, with the vessel essentially becoming a floating germ factory.
Meanwhile, the US death toll from the coronavirus climbed to 14, with all but one victim in Washington state, while the number of infections swelled to over 200, scattered across 18 states.
More From This Section
Nine of the dead were from the same suburban Seattle nursing home, now under federal investigation. Families of nursing home residents voiced anger, having received conflicting information about the condition of their loved ones.
One woman was told her mother had died, then got a call from a staffer who said her mother was doing well, only to find out she had, in fact, died, said Kevin Connolly, whose father-in-law is also a facility resident.
"This is the level of incompetence we're dealing with," Connolly said in front of the Life Care Center in Kirkland.
The coronavirus has infected around 100,000 people worldwide and killed over 3,400, the vast majority of them in China.
Some major businesses in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have circulated undetected for weeks, have shut down some operations or urged employees to work from home. That includes Microsoft and Amazon, the two tech giants that together employ more than 100,000 people in the region.
King County is buying a motel for USD 4 million to house patients and hopes to have the first of them in place within days at the 84-room EconoLodge in Kent, about 20 miles (32 km) from Seattle. The rooms' doors open to the outside rather than to a central hallway, reducing the likelihood of contact between patients.
The plan was met with resistance from local leaders, including Kent Police Chief Rafael Padilla, who called it "ill-advised and dangerous" and warned: "At any point a patient can simply walk into our community and spread the virus."