Over 6000 Passengers and Crew Members Quarantined on Cruise Ship Due to Suspected Coronavirus Case

By Prince Hakeem 

The fear and paranoia surrounding the growing cases of the Coronavirus is getting bigger and bigger. With 132 recorded deaths due to the Coronavirus, governments are not taking any chances when it comes to preventing the further spreading of it.

Case in point being an entire cruise ship being locked down after a suspected case of the illness was reported. 6,651 passengers  and crew members on The Costa Smeralda have been locked in on a cruise ship in Italy after one passenger exhibited symptoms of coronavirus. Docked in the port of Civitavecchia, the cruise line kept everyone on board after a 54 year old from Hong Kong fell sick. Both she and her husband have been quarantined in the hospital section of the ship. Neither they nor anyone else will be released from the ship until the tests for the virus come back negative.

“As soon as the suspected case was detected, the medical team on board immediately activated all the relevant health procedures to promptly isolate and manage clinical conditions,” a spokesperson for the company said.

As of today, more than 7,700 cases of the virus have been confirmed in China. Other confirmed cases have been reported in at least 20 other countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, India, Germany, Finland, and France.

Symptoms include fever followed by a dry cough and shortness of breath; in severe cases it can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death.

Researchers and scientists are racing to create a vaccine from scratch, but state that human trials won’t begin until June at best.