SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — The Grand Princess remained hovering off the California coast early Thursday, banned by Gov. Gavin Newsom from docking in San Francisco and any other California port until 21 passengers and crew members suffering from flu-like symptoms were tested for the coronavirus.

a plane sitting on top of a building © Provided by CBS SF Bay Area

Cruise Tracker showed that by 11:30 a.m. the ship — carrying 2,383 passengers and 1,100 crew members — was off the San Mateo County coast, heading toward the San Francisco Bay.

Mary Ellen Carroll, the San Francisco Director of the Department of Emergency Management, at a Thursday morning news conference said 35 of those aboard had shown flu-like symptoms during the 15-day cruise.

“Many of those people have recovered and are no longer showing flu-like symptoms,” she said. “Once we have results from the (coronavirus) tests (that will be run Thursday), the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the state will determine the most appropriate location for the ship to berth. That location needs to provide for the safety of the surrounding community as well as the passengers.”

“The CDC and the state are considering a number of locations including San Francisco,” she added.

In a news release Wednesday night, Princess Cruises said the plan was for the U.S. Coast Guard to deliver sampling kits to the ship Thursday morning via helicopter. Those flights began arriving around 11 a.m.

The onboard medical team would now administer the tests with the samples being sent in batches by helicopter to a state testing lab in Richmond. Cruise line officials placed the number of those who needed to be tested to fewer than 100.

“There are fewer than 100 guests and crew identified for testing, including all in-transit guests (guests who sailed the previous Mexico voyage and remained onboard for the current Hawaii voyage), those guests and crew who have experienced influenza-like illness symptoms on this voyage, and guests currently under care for respiratory illness,” the release read.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said that 11 passengers and 10 crew members currrently have flu-like symptoms and needed to be tested before clearance to San Francisco — where the cruise to Hawaii began — or any other California port would be given.

“It is a dynamic situation as it relates to the cruise ship, but nothing that should be alarming,” Newsom said. “Appropriate protocols are in place, and as I said, the ship will not come on shore and tour till we appropriately assess the passengers and appropriately assess the protocols and procedures once people make it back on a to state land, state property.”

“We are working closely with the City and County of San Francisco, the port commission and of course, the mayor and mayor’s office,” he continued. “We are grateful for their support and for their reasoned response to this. And as I noted, I want to just acknowledge with 53 tested cases positive, this is no longer isolated, just one part of our state.”

A sick crew member was removed from the Grand Princess before it left Hawaii and returned to California.

“One crew member who had served on the February 11 voyage was medically disembarked from the Grand Princess in Hawaii (on the most recent voyage) with influenza like symptoms and has tested negative for COVID-19,” San Francisco health officials said.

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But testing the ill passengers and crew is only the first step of a challenging process.

Dr. Henry “Chip” Chambers, an infectious disease specialist and UCSF professor, said the situation with the cruise ship has a potential “be a mess.” He points out that it will eventually be a challenge to get all the passengers off the ship, but consider what happened to the Diamond Princess in Japan: it left passengers quarantined onboard for two weeks. 704 people got infected and four of them died.

“I would have trouble regarding that a resounding success,” Chambers said. He also said it depends how well the patients were isolated and how well quarantine procedures were followed. It also depends on the test results.

“My gut is it’s probably a good idea to get people off the boat,” he said.

In response to the growing outbreak of the coronavirus in California — the state has had 53 confirmed cases — Newsom declared a state of emergency on Wednesday. It came in the wake of a sad milestone in the outbreak as a 71-year-old Placer County man died of the illness he had contracted on the Grand Princess during a roundtrip cruise from San Francisco to Mexico on Feb. 11-21.

Officials said other than the Placer County man the two others are Sonoma County residents who both remain hospitalized.

At an afternoon press conference announcing the Placer County death, Dr. Christopher Braden, Deputy Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said there was “a cluster” of potential coronavirus patients from that Feb. 11-21 cruise.

“There are a number of other people who have been identified with some type of symptoms that are undergoing testing now,” he said. “That information will be updated as we know more.”

Princess Cruises officials also announced they were cancelling the Grand Princess next voyage scheduled for March 9.

“All guests will receive a full refund of their cruise fare, Princess Air, Princess Cruise Plus pre- and post-cruise hotel packages, prepaid shore excursions and other prepaid items purchased through Princess,” officials said in a release.

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