Coronavirus leaves passenger-filled ships without ports

Why anyone want to goes on a cruise in these difficult times is beyond me. Can't they have stay home for a few months and let things had calm down? Nobody should even get on these ships when the virus had first appeared in jan. I bet these cruise ships were giving out discounts to attract passengers.

Agree with Hiro. This is not a time to go on cruises,

I was in a DIY store on February 15 where this lady in her late 60's was looking at those 3M silicone, double cartridge N99 masks and looked puzzled as to which one to buy. She asked me if those would work to protect you from the Coronavirus because she was going on a cruise ship at the end of February with her husband. I told her that I really didn't know but I was pretty sure that they would do a much better job than the surgical masks everyone was wearing. Still, I suggested that if they were able to cancel and may be covered by travel insurance, I would cancel. She then said they had been planning this trip to Italy for years. It didn't hit me then because Italy was just starting out but now I really hope they figured a way to cancel and didn't go.

Exactly as I suspected and feared. I pointed out on another thread　("Experts ponder why cruise ship quarantine failed to prevent spread of virus", Japan Today: Feb. 19）:

Even an innocent amateur could surmise that a cruise ship could be an incubator for the novel coronavirus. If the ship was docked in a harbor with all passengers in it, it's almost certain that the ship could become an incubator itself.

The MS Princess Diamond is not a hospital ship equipped with medical facilities adequate for infections like this. The crew members might have intermingled with passengers quite casually, obviously wearing no hazmat suits.

Is the U.S. government repeating the same mistake here too?

All in all, nations should make effective countermeasures against situations like this, including international negotiations and agreements.

Trump more or less....

”I prefer they stay out there because I like the numbers right where they are.”

. . . So much for compassionate conservatism or for that matter intelligent conservatism.

Cruise ships are especially bad because apart from nit being medically equipped on the necessary scale, the paasengers tend to be older retired people.