Modesto couple on Grand Princess cruise off ship, but not yet tested for coronavirus
The Modesto married couple stranded on the Grand Princess cruise last week has made it off the boat, but has still not been tested for coronavirus.
Gina Pallotta and Mike Neky were able to disembark the cruise ship — where 21 people tested positive for the virus — Tuesday evening, along with its some 2,400 passengers. They were taken by bus with police escort to Travis Air Force Base near Fairfield, where Pallotta estimates about 1,000 California residents who were passengers are being housed. Other California residents from the ship were taken to the Marine Corps air station at Miramar in San Diego
Now Pallotta, Neky and the rest of the passengers are all under a 14-day quarantine. While they receive health screenings twice daily to check their temperatures, Pallotta said they have not been tested for COVID-19 yet.
“We think it’s rather odd they have 1,000 of us quarantined and we haven’t been tested. We’ve been asking why we haven’t we been tested,” Pallotta said in a phone interview with The Bee Thursday. “Shouldn’t we be a top priority? We can’t leave, we can’t go home.”
Pallotta and her husband Neky have not displayed any symptoms and are feeling fine. While still on board the ship 45 people were tested for the virus, and 19 crew members and two passengers tested positive. The ship had 2,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members.
When they got off the ship, Pallotta said they were given paperwork stating the federal government’s legal right to quarantine them. They are housed in a two-story apartment complex on base, with a living room, bedroom, bathroom and small kitchenette. But she said the bulk of the passengers are in a four-story on-site hotel.
Those two locations are separate, and fenced off with chain link from the rest of the base. But she is able to talk with other passengers now as they walk on the grounds. They’ve been advised to keep 6-feet from each other.
“It’s been a lot of sitting around and waiting and waiting and waiting. It’s been frustrating,” she said.
They’re being served their meals in their apartments by staff, who are instructed not to enter their rooms. She said all of the medical personnel they’ve had contact with have been wonderful to work with.
“We’re very fortunate, we’re doing great healthwise. All the emergency workers they’ve all been very, very nice to us. They’re doing everything they can, and I’m sure it is frustrating for them too,” she said. “But there’s still a lot of logistics problems.”
That includes meals coming at erratic times (their dinner Wednesday night was served around 8:30 p.m.) and an apparent toilet paper shortage.
On Tuesday before getting off the cruise ship, Pallotta said, they were finally able to get more of Neky’s diabetes medication, with the help of Rep. Josh Harder and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s offices. He ran out on Sunday; the cruise was supposed to end Saturday morning.
Now that they’re quarantined on base, Pallotta and Neky are spending their time walking their fenced-in grounds, watching television and doing jigsaw puzzles in their room. Pallotta worries about what will happen after their 14-day quarantine is over, particularly getting back to normal life.
“We wait for food, we watch TV, we talk with friends and family on the phone,” she said. “We’re hearing about how bad it is people going to grocery store and not being able to get supplies. So I think that right now that is our big concern. We want to be tested. We want to be able to go home.”
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This story was originally published March 12, 2020 at 2:25 PM.
