British couple on coronavirus-hit Grand Princess fear for their lives
‘We’re in a life or death situation with no clue whatsoever’: British couple stranded on coronavirus-hit Grand Princess cruise ship slam the government for failing to care about 140 UK nationals trapped on board
- Denise and Leo McConkey, from London, are trapped on the Grand Princess
- The ship has been circulating the Californian coast since March 5
- There are 21 confirmed coronavirus cases among 3,500 people
- Mr and Mrs McConkey said they are in a ‘life or death’ situation with no support
- On a GMT interview, they described confinement to their cabins like prison
- Piers Morgan pleaded with Boris Johnson and ministers to rescue 140 Britons
- The ship will dock in Oakland today, but the sick and Americans will leave first
A British couple who fear for their lives on a coronavirus-hit cruise ship near San Francisco have slammed the Government for failing to care about UK passengers.
The Grand Princess, with 21 confirmed coronavirus infections among 3,500 people on board, has been circling the Californian coast since March 4. It is also linked to two deaths.
Denise and Leo McConkey, from London, said they had ‘no clue whatsoever’ about how they will be rescued from their ‘prison’ cabins in an interview on Good Morning Britain.
Piers Morgan labelled the lack of support an ‘absolute disgrace’ and pleaded with Boris Johnson and ministers to provide information to the 140 British nationals on board the vessel.
Passengers from 54 countries have been confined to their cabins unable to leave for days, being served food left at their doorsteps by crew in masks and gloves.
The Grand Princess is due to dock in Oakland today, but is expected to initially only allow sick people and Americans off, who will be quarantined nearby.
Mr and Mrs McConkey say they haven’t been tested and ‘don’t know what will happen to us’, claiming to have received no information from the British Government or crew on the cruise liner.
As other British citizens begged the Government to get the home, the Foreign Office and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said it was ‘working intensively’ with US authorities on arrange a flight and was in contact with those on board.
The predicament is reminiscent of the Diamond Princess – owned by the same company – which was quarantined off Japan in February. It was linked to almost 700 cases and six deaths, one of whom was a British man.
Denise and Leo McConkey, from London, who fear for their lives on a coronavirus-hit cruise ship near San Francisco have slammed the Government for providing no support
Piers Morgan labelled the lack of support an ‘absolute disgrace’ and pleaded with Boris Johnson and ministers to provide information to the 140 British nationals on board
The Grand Princess, with 21 confirmed coronavirus infections and one death among 3,500 people on board, has been circling the Californian coast since March 4
Britons on board the Grand Princess have described feeling tired and ‘fed up’, having been confined to their cabins since Wednesday.
It was refused to dock after it emerged that 19 crew and two people who had been on the ship during its previous voyage had contracted the virus.
Panic was sparked when a 71-year-old man on a previous trip died after getting home. Another 75-year-old man has also died.
Among the 140 British nationals on lockdown, Mr and Mrs McConkey claim they have received minimal information from both staff and the British government.
Asked if they had heard from the British government, they said: ‘Nothing at all. Not a word.’
On GMB, Mrs McConkey told Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid: ‘We can’t actually speak to anybody. We just have an announcement from the captain.
‘We’ve got a letter here saying they are going to disembark the sick passengers first, then the Californians, then rest of the Americans, and they don’t know what will happen with us.’
Piers said: ‘It’s an absolute disgrace. If anyone from the Government is watching this, these are British citizens stuck in a crisis on a boat and they need your help, they need information.’
Mr McConkey said: ‘We are in a life and death situation and we’re getting no help from the British Government. It just seems like nobody cares.’
The couple said they were with elderly relatives over the age of 75 and friends – one of whom has an immune disorder.
They were unable to communicate in person with any of their family and friends who are on different decks.
Mr McConkey said he left his cabin on one occasion and claims he was warned by security he would be ‘locked up’ if he didn’t return to his room immediately.
The Grand Princess is due to dock in nearby Oakland, California, today, but is expected to initially only allow sick people and Americans off, who will be quarantined
The ship was refused to dock on March 4 after it emerged that two people who had been on the ship during its previous voyage had contracted the virus. One later died. All passengers have since been confined to their cabins (pictured)
Justine Griffin, from Coventry but living in Leicestershire, is travelling with her husband Dave and friends. She previously told the PA news agency she feared they would be ‘at the bottom of the list’ to get off the vessel
Mrs McConkey said: ‘It’s like being in prison. They knock on the door leave the food on the door and walk away. They’ve got masks on and gloves. We have to just open the door and bring the food in and then put it back out at the end.
‘Nineteen of the crew have the virus and it’s the crew serving us the food. So we don’t know.’
Piers said: ‘You’re stuck on this massive boat, there are a load of people with coronavirus, you’ve got elderly friends and relatives with you with underlying health conditions and you’ve got no information from the British government at all about what is happening.
‘We invited a British government to come on the programme today, they haven’t put anybody up. I find that unbelievable at this stage of a global health crisis.’
A spokeswoman for operator Princess Cruises said: ‘Disembarkation will commence in order of priority, as defined and directed by both state and local authorities. It is expected to be a multiple-day process.’
The crew will remain on board the ship as it departs from San Francisco Bay once all guests are off, a spokeswoman added. Passengers will be tested for the virus once they arrive at their next destination.
‘Plans for a crew quarantine are still being determined,’ she said.
The Government said it has been in contact with all Britons on the ship and is ‘working intensively’ to arrange a repatriation flight.
A spokesman said: ‘We are working intensively with the US authorities on arrangements for a flight for British nationals who are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California.
‘We are in contact with all British nationals on board to offer assistance, as well as local authorities and staff on board the ship.’
In an appeal to the British Government, Jackie Bissell, 70, said: ‘Please try and get us home or at least get us tested to get us out of this room’
Passengers from 54 countries have been confined to cabins unable to leave for days, being served food left at their doorsteps by crew in masks and gloves
The Grand Princess cruise ship, operated by Princess Cruises, was in limbo about 25 miles off the coast of San Francisco
Princess Cruises, owned by Carnival Corp, the world’s leading cruise operator, also runs the Diamond Princess, linked to almost 700 cases of coronavirus and six deaths
In an appeal to the British Government, Jackie Bissell said: ‘Please try and get us home or at least get us tested to get us out of this room.’
The grandmother, of Hartley, Kent, was enjoying a 70th birthday trip when the liner was quarantined.
Neil and Victoria Hanlon, from Bridgwater in Somerset, said they are eager to get home.
Speaking before news of the planned disembarkation was announced, Mr Hanlon said he felt ‘gutted’ that they might have to stay on the ship for another few days.
He told BBC Breakfast: ‘(We’re feeling) very suppressed, very tired, fed up. Just want to get home.’
Mr Hanlon said food is now being limited, and Mrs Hanlon added: ‘We just want to get back to Britain, really.’
Justine Griffin, from Coventry but living in Leicestershire, is travelling with her husband Dave and friends, and renewed her wedding vows on board the ship to mark her 25th wedding anniversary.
She previously told the PA news agency she feared they would be ‘at the bottom of the list’ to get off the vessel.
The couple have not been tested for the coronavirus but believe they will have to enter quarantine in the UK for a further two weeks when they return home.
Princess Cruises, owned by Carnival Corp, the world’s leading cruise operator, also runs the Diamond Princess, which was placed into quarantine in Japan last month.
A total of 696 on board the coronavirus-hit Diamond Princess cruise ship became infected while it was held in quarantine off the port of Yokohama.
A British man became the first UK citizen to die from coronavirus after being infected on the ship, among five other internationals.
A group of 30 British nationals and two Irish citizens were flown back to the UK from the cruise liner and spent two weeks isolated at Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral.
But UK passengers slammed the government for their slow, botched repatriation process.
Alan Steele, from Wolverhampton, blasted the Foreign Office and accused ministers of ‘treating us badly’ and added: ’78 Brits, what the hell do they matter?’
So far seen more than 110,00 people across the globe haven fallen ill with COVID-19
On Sunday, health officials said confirmed cases in the UK rose to 278, from 209 on Saturday – the biggest rise within 24 hours so far
Leading scientists warned holidaymakers who remained aboard the ship were increasingly likely to catch coronavirus because the gigantic vessel is an ideal breeding ground due to its bungled 14-day quarantine.
The Grand Princess will dock at The Port of Oakland which was chosen because of its proximity to an airport and a military base, according to California Governor Gavin Newsom and the mayor of Oakland.
US passengers will be transported to military bases in California, Texas and Georgia, where they will be tested for the Covid-19 virus and quarantined.
Fences were being installed at an 11-acre site at the Port of Oakland, as authorities organised flights and buses to whisk the more than 2,000 American passengers to quarantine.
About 1,100 crew on the ship, 19 of whom have tested positive for the new virus, will be quarantined and treated aboard the ship, which will dock elsewhere, Mr Newsom said.
‘That ship will turn around — and they are currently assessing appropriate places to bring that quarantined ship – but it will not be here in the San Francisco Bay,’ he said.
The ship was initially planned to dock during the weekend, when US Vice President Mike Pence said on Friday all 3,533 passengers and crew will be tested.
Pence believes the numbers of those infected was high among the crew as they had likely been exposed during two previous outings.
He said: ‘We will be testing everyone on the ship and quarantining as necessary. But with regard to the 1,100-member crew, we anticipate that they will be quarantined on the ship.’
President Donald Trump said he would rather have passengers remain on board the vessel, but that he would let others decide if they can disembark.
‘I’d rather have them stay on, personally, but I fully understand if they want to take them off,’ Trump told reporters after touring the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta.
Allowing passengers onto US soil who might be infected would push up the number of coronavirus cases in the country, he said. There have been 554 confirmed cases and 21 deaths in the US.
Among the passengers stranded off the California coast on the Grand Princess is Kari Kolstoe, a retiree from North Dakota with stage-4 cancer.
Mrs Kolstoe, 60, said she and her husband, Paul, 61, had badly needed respite from the grind of medical intervention she has endured for the past 18 months.
She worries their getaway cruise will end up causing a fateful delay in her next round of chemotherapy, scheduled to begin this week.
The Grand Princess will dock at The Port of Oakland which was chosen because of its proximity to an airport and a military base
Among the passengers stranded off the California coast on the Grand Princess is Kari Kolstoe, a retiree from North Dakota with stage-4 cancer
Mrs Kolstoe, 60, worries her getaway cruise will end up causing a fateful delay in her next round of chemotherapy, scheduled to begin this week
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE CORONAVIRUS?
Someone who is infected with the coronavirus can spread it with just a simple cough or a sneeze, scientists say.
Nearly 4,000 people with the virus are now confirmed to have died and more than 110,000 have been infected. Here’s what we know so far:
What is the coronavirus?
A coronavirus is a type of virus which can cause illness in animals and people. Viruses break into cells inside their host and use them to reproduce itself and disrupt the body’s normal functions. Coronaviruses are named after the Latin word ‘corona’, which means crown, because they are encased by a spiked shell which resembles a royal crown.
The coronavirus from Wuhan is one which has never been seen before this outbreak. It has been named SARS-CoV-2 by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. The name stands for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2.
Experts say the bug, which has killed around one in 50 patients since the outbreak began in December, is a ‘sister’ of the SARS illness which hit China in 2002, so has been named after it.
The disease that the virus causes has been named COVID-19, which stands for coronavirus disease 2019.
Dr Helena Maier, from the Pirbright Institute, said: ‘Coronaviruses are a family of viruses that infect a wide range of different species including humans, cattle, pigs, chickens, dogs, cats and wild animals.
‘Until this new coronavirus was identified, there were only six different coronaviruses known to infect humans. Four of these cause a mild common cold-type illness, but since 2002 there has been the emergence of two new coronaviruses that can infect humans and result in more severe disease (Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronaviruses).
‘Coronaviruses are known to be able to occasionally jump from one species to another and that is what happened in the case of SARS, MERS and the new coronavirus. The animal origin of the new coronavirus is not yet known.’
The first human cases were publicly reported from the Chinese city of Wuhan, where approximately 11million people live, after medics first started publicly reporting infections on December 31.
By January 8, 59 suspected cases had been reported and seven people were in critical condition. Tests were developed for the new virus and recorded cases started to surge.
The first person died that week and, by January 16, two were dead and 41 cases were confirmed. The next day, scientists predicted that 1,700 people had become infected, possibly up to 7,000.
Just a week after that, there had been more than 800 confirmed cases and those same scientists estimated that some 4,000 – possibly 9,700 – were infected in Wuhan alone. By that point, 26 people had died.
By January 27, more than 2,800 people were confirmed to have been infected, 81 had died, and estimates of the total number of cases ranged from 100,000 to 350,000 in Wuhan alone.
By January 29, the number of deaths had risen to 132 and cases were in excess of 6,000.
By February 5, there were more than 24,000 cases and 492 deaths.
By February 11, this had risen to more than 43,000 cases and 1,000 deaths.
A change in the way cases are confirmed on February 13 – doctors decided to start using lung scans as a formal diagnosis, as well as laboratory tests – caused a spike in the number of cases, to more than 60,000 and to 1,369 deaths.
By February 25, around 80,000 people had been infected and some 2,700 had died. February 25 was the first day in the outbreak when fewer cases were diagnosed within China than in the rest of the world.
Where does the virus come from?
According to scientists, the virus almost certainly came from bats. Coronaviruses in general tend to originate in animals – the similar SARS and MERS viruses are believed to have originated in civet cats and camels, respectively.
The first cases of COVID-19 came from people visiting or working in a live animal market in Wuhan, which has since been closed down for investigation.
Although the market is officially a seafood market, other dead and living animals were being sold there, including wolf cubs, salamanders, snakes, peacocks, porcupines and camel meat.
A study by the Wuhan Institute of Virology, published in February 2020 in the scientific journal Nature, found that the genetic make-up virus samples found in patients in China is 96 per cent identical to a coronavirus they found in bats.
However, there were not many bats at the market so scientists say it was likely there was an animal which acted as a middle-man, contracting it from a bat before then transmitting it to a human. It has not yet been confirmed what type of animal this was.
Dr Michael Skinner, a virologist at Imperial College London, was not involved with the research but said: ‘The discovery definitely places the origin of nCoV in bats in China.
‘We still do not know whether another species served as an intermediate host to amplify the virus, and possibly even to bring it to the market, nor what species that host might have been.’
So far the fatalities are quite low. Why are health experts so worried about it?
Experts say the international community is concerned about the virus because so little is known about it and it appears to be spreading quickly.
It is similar to SARS, which infected 8,000 people and killed nearly 800 in an outbreak in Asia in 2003, in that it is a type of coronavirus which infects humans’ lungs. It is less deadly than SARS, however, which killed around one in 10 people, compared to approximately one in 50 for COVID-19.
Another reason for concern is that nobody has any immunity to the virus because they’ve never encountered it before. This means it may be able to cause more damage than viruses we come across often, like the flu or common cold.
Speaking at a briefing in January, Oxford University professor, Dr Peter Horby, said: ‘Novel viruses can spread much faster through the population than viruses which circulate all the time because we have no immunity to them.
‘Most seasonal flu viruses have a case fatality rate of less than one in 1,000 people. Here we’re talking about a virus where we don’t understand fully the severity spectrum but it’s possible the case fatality rate could be as high as two per cent.’
If the death rate is truly two per cent, that means two out of every 100 patients who get it will die.
‘My feeling is it’s lower,’ Dr Horby added. ‘We’re probably missing this iceberg of milder cases. But that’s the current circumstance we’re in.
‘Two per cent case fatality rate is comparable to the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 so it is a significant concern globally.’
How does the virus spread?
The illness can spread between people just through coughs and sneezes, making it an extremely contagious infection. And it may also spread even before someone has symptoms.
It is believed to travel in the saliva and even through water in the eyes, therefore close contact, kissing, and sharing cutlery or utensils are all risky.
Originally, people were thought to be catching it from a live animal market in Wuhan city. But cases soon began to emerge in people who had never been there, which forced medics to realise it was spreading from person to person.
There is now evidence that it can spread third hand – to someone from a person who caught it from another person.
What does the virus do to you? What are the symptoms?
Once someone has caught the COVID-19 virus it may take between two and 14 days, or even longer, for them to show any symptoms – but they may still be contagious during this time.
If and when they do become ill, typical signs include a runny nose, a cough, sore throat and a fever (high temperature). The vast majority of patients will recover from these without any issues, and many will need no medical help at all.
In a small group of patients, who seem mainly to be the elderly or those with long-term illnesses, it can lead to pneumonia. Pneumonia is an infection in which the insides of the lungs swell up and fill with fluid. It makes it increasingly difficult to breathe and, if left untreated, can be fatal and suffocate people.
Figures are showing that young children do not seem to be particularly badly affected by the virus, which they say is peculiar considering their susceptibility to flu, but it is not clear why.
What have genetic tests revealed about the virus?
Scientists in China have recorded the genetic sequences of around 19 strains of the virus and released them to experts working around the world.
This allows others to study them, develop tests and potentially look into treating the illness they cause.
Examinations have revealed the coronavirus did not change much – changing is known as mutating – much during the early stages of its spread.
However, the director-general of China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Gao Fu, said the virus was mutating and adapting as it spread through people.
This means efforts to study the virus and to potentially control it may be made extra difficult because the virus might look different every time scientists analyse it.
More study may be able to reveal whether the virus first infected a small number of people then change and spread from them, or whether there were various versions of the virus coming from animals which have developed separately.
How dangerous is the virus?
The virus has a death rate of around two per cent. This is a similar death rate to the Spanish Flu outbreak which, in 1918, went on to kill around 50million people.
Experts have been conflicted since the beginning of the outbreak about whether the true number of people who are infected is significantly higher than the official numbers of recorded cases. Some people are expected to have such mild symptoms that they never even realise they are ill unless they’re tested, so only the more serious cases get discovered, making the death toll seem higher than it really is.
However, an investigation into government surveillance in China said it had found no reason to believe this was true.
Dr Bruce Aylward, a World Health Organization official who went on a mission to China, said there was no evidence that figures were only showing the tip of the iceberg, and said recording appeared to be accurate, Stat News reported.
Can the virus be cured?
The COVID-19 virus cannot be cured and it is proving difficult to contain.
Antibiotics do not work against viruses, so they are out of the question. Antiviral drugs can work, but the process of understanding a virus then developing and producing drugs to treat it would take years and huge amounts of money.
No vaccine exists for the coronavirus yet and it’s not likely one will be developed in time to be of any use in this outbreak, for similar reasons to the above.
The National Institutes of Health in the US, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, say they are working on a vaccine based on what they know about coronaviruses in general, using information from the SARS outbreak. But this may take a year or more to develop, according to Pharmaceutical Technology.
Currently, governments and health authorities are working to contain the virus and to care for patients who are sick and stop them infecting other people.
People who catch the illness are being quarantined in hospitals, where their symptoms can be treated and they will be away from the uninfected public.
And airports around the world are putting in place screening measures such as having doctors on-site, taking people’s temperatures to check for fevers and using thermal screening to spot those who might be ill (infection causes a raised temperature).
However, it can take weeks for symptoms to appear, so there is only a small likelihood that patients will be spotted up in an airport.
Is this outbreak an epidemic or a pandemic?
The outbreak is an epidemic, which is when a disease takes hold of one community such as a country or region.
Although it has spread to dozens of countries, the outbreak is not yet classed as a pandemic, which is defined by the World Health Organization as the ‘worldwide spread of a new disease’.
The head of WHO’s global infectious hazard preparedness, Dr Sylvie Briand, said: ‘Currently we are not in a pandemic. We are at the phase where it is an epidemic with multiple foci, and we try to extinguish the transmission in each of these foci,’ the Guardian reported.
She said that most cases outside of Hubei had been ‘spillover’ from the epicentre, so the disease wasn’t actually spreading actively around the world.
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