Santa Barbara asks cruise ships to cancel visits to the city amid coronavirus outbreak  

Princess Cruises told Santa Barbara on Monday that the Grand Princess cruise ship will not be coming to town on March 24 as scheduled, city spokeswoman Nina Johnson said in a statement.

The Grand Princess cruise ship has multiple confirmed COVID-19 cases, and was diverted to Oakland, where it offloaded passengers on Monday. Some of the passengers will be quarantined at military facilities after they leave the ship, according to authorities and news reports.

Santa Barbara is asking other cruise lines to cancel their upcoming visits to the city as well.

“To protect the safety of residents, the city will contact other cruise lines to request cancellation of their upcoming cruise visits to Santa Barbara, until the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention removes their travel advisory for cruise ships. There are ten cruise visits planned in Santa Barbara through June 2020,” the city said in a news release.

The move comes as state and federal officials, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, recommend avoiding cruise ship travel due to COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus.

Residents were concerned when the cruise ship Amadea, which had no reported cases, was anchored off Santa Barbara last week, and the Public Health Department said it would not allow the Grand Princess or other ships to visit if they had travelers aboard with COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus.

Ongoing planning efforts for COVID-19 response

Meanwhile, local health officials now say it’s a matter of time before COVID-19 has confirmed cases in Santa Barbara County.

Actions taken in other parts of the country — declarations of emergency, canceled public events, school closures — have not been implemented here, but public health officer Dr. Henning Ansorg said Santa Barbara County needs to start planning for social distancing.

“The discovery of community transmission (person-to-person spread of the virus) elsewhere in the state makes me feel that COVID-19 could arrive in our county at any time and we want to be prepared,” he said in a statement.

Businesses should determine which employees can work from home, medical facilities should communicate with patients by phone and video when possible, and extended care facilities for the elderly are asked to update plans for protecting residents from interacting with people outside their homes, he said.

“The cancelation of large, non-essential gatherings is a possibility down the line,” he said.

“Above all, people who are starting to feel ill or who are ill, should stay away from others and not go into crowded settings.”

As Public Health Officer, Ansorg has authority to declare a public health emergency, ban cruise ships from disembarking in the county, and order quarantines, but said Friday he has not taken any of those actions.

The Public Health Department has a hotline with a recorded message at 805-681-4373 and an information page on the virus here.

Santa Barbara County plans to create a bilingual website specifically for COVID-19 information, but hadn’t as of Monday.

Screening and testing

Coronaviruses typically cause mild or moderate respiratory illness in humans, but this novel coronavirus, which was first discovered in late 2019, can cause severe respiratory problems. It spreads by droplets, like the influenza virus, and has similar symptoms of fever, fatigue, cough, or shortness of breath.

Some people may have pneumonia or illness that is more serious, according to Public Health officials.

While health officials initially screened cases while keeping travel in mind – whether the person visited an affected area or a person known to have COVID-19 – they don’t anymore.

Cottage Health’s medical director of infection control and prevention, Dr. David Fisk, said hospitals and other health care providers now consider screening and testing anyone with a fever and signs of pneumonia or other respiratory failure without an explanation.

“We have eliminated any travel criteria for considering people as possible patients of COVID-19,” Fisk said.

“This is a very rapidly spreading outbreak and in my opinion … it’s moving into the realm of a pandemic,” he said last week.

Cottage Health is “working feverishly” to create procedures to identify and screen possible COVID-19 patients before they enter any buildings, such as meeting them out in the parking lot, putting a mask on them, and putting them into protective isolation.

Anyone experiencing symptoms who thinks they may be ill with COVID-19 is asked to call their health care provider before seeking care.

For the Cottage Health emergency departments, people with symptoms are asked to call ahead, at 805-569-7878, so medical staff can safely process them, he said.

The Cottage Health recorded information line is available at 805-324-9019.

While Fisk said Cottage Health facilities have a reserve supply of protective masks for medical staff members, there are “looming shortages” of protective equipment and they are working with vendors to order more.

“Right now our supply of these protective masks for Cottage health care workers is anticipated to be many months’ worth of these masks. That obviously depends on our rates of usage and how widespread it becomes,” he said.

All testing in the United States was done through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention until March 27, when they sent testing kits to California and other areas, according to Ansorg.

Testing for COVID-19 has been very limited in the United States, with hopes the capacity will expand this week, he said.