FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- The Coast Guard has directed cruise ships to prepare to treat any sick passengers and crew on board while being sequestered "indefinitely" offshore during the coronavirus pandemic.
The new rules outlined in a memo are required for ships in the district that covers Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and Puerto Rico. They also come with a warning: Any foreign-flagged vessels "that loiter beyond U.S. territorial seas" should try first to medically evacuate the very sick to those countries instead.
Many south Florida cruise ships are registered in the Bahamas, where hospital capacity is limited and people are still recovering from last year's Hurricane Dorian.
The rules, which apply to vessels carrying more than 50 people, were issued in a Sunday safety bulletin signed by Coast Guard Rear Adm. E.C. Jones, head of the 7th District. All ships destined for U.S. ports were already required to provide daily updates on their coronavirus caseloads or face civil penalties or criminal prosecution.
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Dozens of cruise ships are either lined up at Port Miami and Port Everglades or waiting offshore because of the coronavirus pandemic. Most have only crew members aboard, but Carnival Corp., which owns nine cruise lines with 105 ships, indicated Tuesday that it has more than 6,000 passengers still at sea.
Federal, state and local officials have been negotiating over whether Carnival's Holland America cruise ships, the Zaandam and Rotterdam, would be allowed to dock at Port Everglades this week. But the company's Coral Princess is on its way, too, with what that ship's medical center called a higher-than-normal number of people with flu-like symptoms.
Carnival said three of the 40 ships that were at sea when it paused its cruises last month are expected to arrive at port by week's end. In addition to the ships arriving in Fort Lauderdale, other ships are approaching Civitavecchia, Italy, and Southampton, England, spokesman Roger Frizzell said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said he expected a resolution Wednesday after speaking with President Donald Trump, but port authorities later said discussions between the company and officials over the terms of docking were ongoing and they did not expect to update Broward County commissioners Wednesday as foreseen at the Tuesday meeting.
DeSantis maintained that Florida's health care system is stretched too thin to take on the ships' coronavirus caseload, but he said he would accept the Florida residents on board.
Under normal conditions, a ship can call on the Coast Guard to medically evacuate people too sick to be cared for on board.
Now a Coast Guard flight surgeon in the 7th District will decide if a transfer is absolutely necessary, but the cruise companies then would be responsible for arranging on-shore transportation and hospital beds.
Information for this article was contributed by Kelli Kennedy and Julie Walker of The Associated Press.
A Section on 04/02/2020