A number of Irish passengers are reportedly stuck on a cruise ship docked outside San Francisco where 21 people have tested positive for COVID-19 (Coronavirus).
The Grand Princess cruise ship has been stranded off San Francisco since Wednesday and the US Government said that all of its 3,533 passengers and crew will be tested for the novel virus.
The vessel is linked to infections from an earlier voyage since two people who were on the ship during its previous journey have tested positive for Coronavirus.
In total, 19 crew members and two passengers have so far tested positive for COVID-19. RTÉ News reports that Irish passengers are among the passengers yet to be tested.
US Vice President Mike Pence, who is in charge of the American response to the outbreak, said that the US will be testing and quarantining all passengers.
He said that the 1,100-member crew would be quarantined on the ship.
Pence said that he believes the number of confirmed cases will be high among crew members since they were likely exposed to it on previous voyages.
This is the second time that a major cruise ship has had to be docked due to an outbreak of the virus. The Diamond Princess has been docked at Yokohama since the beginning of February and almost 700 people contracted COVID-19.
The California National Guard delivered Coronavirus test kits to the ship and US authorities plan to take the ship to a non-commercial dock in California.
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Read more: Irish passengers quarantined on cruise ship in Japan amid coronavirus outbreak
However, President Donald Trump wants to prevent the passengers from stepping onto US soil.
Trump said that he "liked the numbers being where they are" and said that he didn't want coronavirus figures in the United States to grow exponentially by allowing passengers and crew off the ship.
“I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault.”
The total of confirmed cases in America has moved north of 300 and currently stands at 335. A total of 17 people have died after being infected, while 15 have recovered so far. A further eight people are said to be in critical condition.
Globally, there have been more than 103,000 confirmed cases of Coronavirus, but over 58,000 people have already recovered. The death toll currently stands at 3,522.
Read more: Four new cases of coronavirus confirmed in west of Ireland
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