Modesto couple face quarantine, optimistic they’ll be off Grand Princess by Tuesday
Gina Pallotta and her husband Mike heard a knock on their cabin door at midnight. They opened the door to a man dressed head-to-toe in a protective suit, who asked if they were ready for their health assessment.
It was just another surreal event for the Modesto couple, who are stranded on the coronavirus-stricken Grand Princess cruise ship that’s now docked in Oakland, with the eyes of the world upon them. The late night health screening involved answering some questions. The Modesto couple is still free of symptoms.
The couple’s two-week cruise from San Francisco to Hawaii and back was cut short when people onboard came down with symptoms and a 71-year-old Placer County man, who was on a previous San Francisco-Mexico trip, was confirmed as California’s first coronavirus death last week.
Pallotta and Mike Neky have been restricted to their cabin for four days and are facing a 14-day quarantine with other passengers at a military base. The cruise was supposed to end Saturday.
“We sing the Gilligan’s Island song to each other — ‘a (three)-hour tour’,” Pallotta mused.
After waiting for days outside San Francisco by emergency order, the cruise ship was permitted to dock in Oakland on Monday to cheers from passengers, truck horns and dock workers waving.
Speaking by phone Monday afternoon, Pallotta said she could watch the zoo-like scene below from her balcony — 16 buses and 20 ambulances lined up, large tents for medical triage, activity on the dock and news helicopters overhead. “I can see they are bringing in a bunch of wheelchairs,” Pallotta said.
People with medical needs were expected to leave the ship first in the complicated offloading process for 3,500 passengers and crew members, which is expected to take days. Of the 46 people who were tested for coronavirus, 21 are infected including 19 crew members.
Officials believe the virus was transferred to the Grand Princess when 62 people from the Mexico cruise boarded the Hawaii-bound ship.
Pallotta and Neky are optimistic of being able to leave the ship Tuesday. Passengers were told California residents on the ship will be sent for a two-week quarantine either at Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield or the Marine Corps air station at Miramar in San Diego. Symptoms of COVID-19 occur 2 to 14 days after infection, according to health information.
Passengers from outside California will be sent to bases in other states for quarantine. Canada plans a flight for its citizens who leave the ship.
Tuesday afternoon, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services said 407 people, 173 of them from the United States, had been removed from the ship Monday.
The first wave of passengers removed included people with physical limitations or medical needs, so authorities expected the process to move more swiftly on Tuesday.
The Modesto pair have not been tested and, like other passengers they constantly wear masks in their cabin. A few passengers with small windowless rooms were allowed to get fresh air on the deck, Pallotta said.
Gina and Mike obeyed a captain’s announcement Monday to pack their large bags and have a separate bag with medications and clothes for two days, and be ready to leave.
Pallotta said she believes the cruise line has handled the crisis fairly well. However, her husband, whose supply of medication was running out over the weekend, has not received the medication he needs for diabetes. “We got a call today asking what he needs,” Pallotta said. “They didn’t have the form we submitted.”
Pallotta and Neky planned the vacation a year ago and thought it would be OK to take the cruise despite the coronavirus scare. Since the coronavirus limited the activity of passengers last week, Pallotta and Neky have called friends and family to keep up their spirits and even called Rep. Josh Harder, D-Turlock, to discuss any issues.
Princess Cruises informed people that cruise fares, gratuities and purchases on the Grand Princess will be refunded; in addition, credit worth the total cost of the cruise can be used for another cruise booked within a year.
Pallotta, who’s retired and works part-time as a psychologist for Kaiser Permanente in Sacramento, estimated she will miss five to six weeks of work counting the vacation and the upcoming quarantine.
This story was originally published March 9, 2020 at 6:09 PM.
