Coronavirus updates: Cruise ship docks; 2nd death in California; schools plan to go remote
From becoming the butt of a “Saturday Night Live” joke to the region’s largest school district closing all campuses this week, Northern California has been consumed by all things coronavirus.
New developments regarding the fast-spreading illness, formally referred to as COVID-19, did not slow down over the weekend or on Monday.
Gov. Gavin Newsom urged the elderly and those with health conditions to stop taking cruises, a day before the Grand Princess - a large vacation cruise ship with about 2,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members on board - docked Monday in Oakland.
To get caught up, here are updates on some of the major developments from late last week and through early Monday afternoon as confirmed infections, closures and cancellations related to the coronavirus continue to mount.
California’s second coronavirus death reported
Santa Clara County public health officials announced that a woman in her 60s, hospitalized for “several weeks” with COVID-19, died at El Camino Hospital on Monday morning.
The public health department in a news release said the woman was the third coronavirus case in the county overall and the first known case there of “community spread,” meaning the exact source of her infection could not be traced to recent travel or contact with an existing patient. Her case was reported Feb. 28.
The death marks the second in California due to the virus and at least the 26th fatality nationwide, with 22 deaths reported in Washington state and two in Florida, according to state and local health departments as well as data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.
According to its website, Santa Clara County had documented 37 cases of the coronavirus as of Sunday, the most in California thus far.
Grand Princess cruise ship docks. Now what?
The vacation cruise ship, which has been lingering for days off the coast of California with 2,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members on board, docked midday Monday at the Port of Oakland, as state officials announced would be the case after initially saying it would arrive Sunday.
The ship landed at a specially secured section of the port after traveling under the Golden Gate Bridge Monday, under the watchful eye of news cameras and interested onlookers. Passengers cheered as the ship passed beneath the landmark.
Of 46 who were tested by lab kits airlifted onto the vessel last week, 21 were confirmed positive for COVID-19, according to state emergency officials.
None who disembark Monday will be released directly into the general public.
The state Office of Emergency Services and federal Department of Health and Human Services established “disembarking screening protocols to focus first on helping those individuals who require immediate emergency medical care, not necessarily related to COVID-19 exposure,” according to a Monday morning news release by CalOES.
Next, Californians -- who make up 962 of the more than 2,400 passengers aboard the vacation ship -- will begin disembarking. They’ll be shuttled for testing and quarantine at either Travis Air Force Base or Marine Corps Air Station Miramar.
Finally, non-California residents will disembark and be “transported by the federal government to facilities in other states” for quarantine.
The ship’s crew will remain quarantined, except for anyone who may require immediate medical attention or hospitalization.
The Grand Princess will only stay at port during the disembarkment, and will then “depart Oakland as soon as possible and will remain elsewhere for the duration of the crew’s quarantine,” Monday’s statement said.
State officials said Oakland was chosen because it has docking facilities large enough to handle the large ship and because the “location was the easiest to seal off, securely move passengers toward their isolation destinations and protect the safety of the public.”
The Grand Princess initially went into limbo, returning early from a planned voyage to Hawaii, after it emerged that multiple passengers from the ship’s trip to Mexico that disembarked in San Francisco on Feb. 21, had contracted the virus. One of those patients, a 71-year-old Placer County man, died last week, becoming the state’s first coronavirus-related death.
Grand Princess passengers offered full refunds
Princess Cruises says it will give full refunds and offer significant compensation packages to all guests on the Grand Princess.
The company in a statement Monday morning said it will refund essentially all fares associated with the trip, excluding any “jewelry and fine art” purchased, and won’t charge guests for incidental charges accumulated while on board.
On top of that, Princess says it will give guests “a future cruise credit equal to the cruise fare paid for the voyage.”
“In consideration of the extraordinary circumstances onboard Grand Princess, Princess Cruises will refund the full cruise fare for all guests including air travel, hotel, ground transportation, pre-paid shore excursions, gratuities and other items (exclusion jewelry and fine art),” public relations director Negin Kamali wrote in an emailed statement.
While Princess is refunding tips made by guests, it said “the company will ensure crew members will receive their designated gratuities for the work performed,” according to the statement.
Guests on board were sent a letter with details on how to process the refunds, the statement said..
The Grand Princess cruise ship, which had about 3,500 people on board as of Monday morning, became a hot zone for the rapidly spreading novel coronavirus, officially termed COVID-19, late last month, when the virus was detected in two passengers on a February trip to Mexico after they disembarked.
Gov. Newsom to elderly: Don’t go on a cruise
Speaking in Oakland on Sunday, Newsom said he “would highly recommend, almost demand, that you not go on a cruise” if you are elderly or have a “preexisting condition.” The U.S. State Department in a Sunday statement warned all Americans to avoid cruises.
While detailing protocols involved with receiving the Grand Princess and the offboarding and quarantine of its thousands of passengers, Newsom said the state does not have the capacity to handle many more similar outbreak incidents.
Elk Grove Unified cancels class, moves spring break
Elk Grove Unified School District will “close its schools, cancel classes and any student-related activities from (Saturday), March 7 - March 13, 2020,” the district announced Friday in a letter, which also noted that no student or staff has yet tested positive for COVID-19.
The school district moved up its spring break, which had been scheduled for April, to this week to avoid losing school days. EGUSD, which serves about 64,000 students among 67 schools, is the fourth-largest school district in the state and the biggest in Northern California.
The district’s decision to cancel student-related activities along with classes initially put an end to the Sheldon High School varsity boys basketball team’s run in the state playoffs. Slated to play Dublin in Saturday’s semifinal of the CIF Northern California Open Division Regional tournament, the game was scratched and the California Interscholastic Federation initially indicated that Dublin would advance due to Sheldon withdrawing.
Now, it appears that the game could be back on. The CIF in a statement Sunday said it is working with health experts and EGUSD on a plan to put Sheldon back in the Open Division championship semifinal, with a proposed start time of 7 p.m. Tuesday at Dublin.
“The EGUSD has stated that it should be providing the CIF with updated information regarding its school’s ability to continue in the tournament,” the federation’s statement said. “The CIF will then assess the updated information.”
Canceling school and school activities at EGUSD was a contentious decision that made waves in the community. Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, Sacramento County health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson and other local leaders faced a crowd of angry parents and student athletes, especially those associated with Sheldon, who packed a Sunday press conference to argue their case.
A Change.org petition that has been circulating since the weekend, asking EGUSD to consider alternatives to shifting spring break up to this week, had received more than 2,600 signatures as of Monday morning.
“EGUSD can not move a date that has been on calendar for the entire school year, especially in such short notice,” the petition read, proposing solutions such as tacking on an additional school week at the end of the year.
The Sacramento County Public Health Department in a weekend news release following the EGUSD announcement said there is “no immediate risk and therefore no recommendation from SCPH that any individual school or school district needs to close down,” and health chief Dr. Peter Beilenson said county authorities “respect” the district’s decision, but that he did not see the district’s closing as a “tipping point.” Beilenson also said during Sunday’s news conference that the cancellation decision was “kind of fast-track.”
Newsom, though, in a weekend statement warned that additional school closures are likely throughout the state in the coming weeks as the coronavirus continues to spread.
Sierra College district transitions to remote learning
Sierra College declared a state of emergency and is limiting who can access its campuses beginning Monday, officials say.
Officials are limiting access to its four campuses for the month of March. Only registered students, faculty, staff and affiliates are authorized on the campuses, according to the college system’s website.
Instruction will continue for the college’s 20,000 students. But by this Wednesday, faculty should be prepared to provide instruction remotely, including labs and other activities; and by March 18 all campuses are expected to be online under a campus learning system called Canvas. The college district will determine which labs will remain on site.
Field trips, travel for classes, all community events held on campus are canceled for March. All athletic competitions are still scheduled but without spectators. Travel and away games are continuing for now, according to the district’s statement.
The four-campus college serves students at locations in Rocklin, Roseville, Grass Valley and Truckee.
The college district stated it took action after two Sierra College employees were exposed to the coronavirus. Both employees returned to work at the Rocklin campus administrative office after they were exposed, and were sent home once they were notified of the exposure. No one associated with Sierra College has tested positive for the virus, according to officials.
Los Rios Community College District, which operates the Cosumnes River, American River, Folsom Lake and Sacramento City junior colleges in Sacramento County, has not yet made a decision similar to Sierra College. Los Rios officials are in the process of planning multiple scenarios, including converting all classes to online.
Sacramento County expands coronavirus testing
Beilenson, the county health chief, said Sunday that physicians will benefit from increased testing capacity starting Monday, when LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics will have approval to perform local analyses.
According to Beilenson, the county had been constrained to 20 tests per day due to a lack of available lab kits from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“It’s clearly a shortcoming of the CDC, in terms of not having enough tests out there,” Beilenson said.
Coronavirus is spread through contact between people within six feet of each other, especially through coughing and sneezing that expels respiratory droplets that land in the mouths or noses of people nearby. The CDC says it’s possible to catch the disease COVID-19 by touching something that has the virus on it, and then touching your own face, “but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.”
Symptoms of the virus that causes COVID-19 include fever, cough and shortness of breath, which may occur two days to two weeks after exposure. Most develop only mild symptoms, but some people develop more severe symptoms, including pneumonia, which can be fatal. The disease is especially dangerous to the elderly and others with weaker immune systems.
Testing is generally performed on those experiencing symptoms, or those with known exposure to the coronavirus via recent travel to countries with a high volume of cases, such as China, Italy or most recently the Grand Princess cruise ship.
Where do the coronavirus numbers stand?
As of Monday morning, a map and tally of confirmed coronavirus cases maintained by Johns Hopkins University shows more than 111,000 worldwide, the bulk coming from mainland China, where there are more than 80,000 cases, and more than 7,000 in each of South Korea, Italy and Iran. The global death total is near 3,900.
The United States has had close to 600 infections reported across 34 states, with California and Washington state each making up about 25 percent of the nationwide total. At least 25 people have died of the coronavirus in the U.S. as of early Monday afternoon.
The California Department of Public Health website showed a count of 114 positive cases and one death in California as of Sunday morning. Washington state reported 136 confirmed cases, of which 18 had died, as of 4 p.m. Sunday, not including King County’s announcement Monday of 33 new cases and three additional deaths.
Stock market plummets, largest 1-day Dow loss ever
Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average opened Monday on a 1,300-point plunge, while the S&P 500 futures market indicated a 5 percent drop, CNBC reported, triggering a halt in trading.
By market close Monday, the Dow had dropped more than 2,000 points, the largest one-day point loss on record, Yahoo Finance and others reported. The Dow Jones, Nasdaq and S&P 500 had all lost more than 7 percent by Monday’s close, Yahoo reports.
The New York Federal Reserve pledged Monday to boost the amount of money offered to banks for short-term funding needs, according to the network.
Fears are rising that production delays and economic slowdowns could spark a recession, and investors are turning to U.S. Treasury bonds and gold in search of stability, NBC News reported.
Daniel Craig visits ‘Modesto’ for wacky SNL sketch
Kate McKinnon and host Daniel Craig starred in a soap opera parody for “Saturday Night Live,” set in a Modesto that looks and feels nothing like the real city, as a pair of lovers who cannot keep their hands off of each other. Except in this world of COVID-19, they have to.
The premise of the gag is that the coronavirus outbreak has affected filming of a fictional soap titled “The Sands of Modesto,” forcing the actors to take extreme precautions to avoid actual physical contact as they canoodle.
At one point, Craig caresses McKinnon’s cheek from across the couch using a prosthetic arm on a 4-foot-long pole. At another, the two pull up a large glass screen and stick it between them so that they can “kiss” passionately without touching lips..
Modesto inaccuracies aside, the skit could dust up some mild debate about whether SNL writers are making light of a potentially deadly virus, or making fun of California’s response to the outbreak, or just making the most of the situation as a stage for physical comedy. But most would probably agree that there are more pressing matters at hand.
This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 8:42 AM with the headline "Coronavirus updates: Cruise ship docks; 2nd death in California; schools plan to go remote."
