There are 38 Russian nationals on board a Costa Magica cruise ship that has been stranded off the coast of the Caribbean island of Martinique after some passengers were confirmed to have the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Russian Embassy in Paris told Sputnik
PARIS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 13th March, 2020) There are 38 Russian nationals on board a Costa Magica cruise ship that has been stranded off the coast of the Caribbean island of Martinique after some passengers were confirmed to have the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), the Russian Embassy in Paris told Sputnik.
Reports of the Costa Magica, which is carrying 2,309 passengers and 960 crew members, being stranded came in earlier in the day.
"There are 30 Russian nationals among passengers [of Costa Magica] and eight others are members of the crew," the embassy said.
The cruise ship's operating company told Sputnik that three passengers two tourists from Finland and an Indonesian crew member had indeed tested positive for the coronavirus. It also said the ship had still not been granted permission to let its passengers disembark.
Earlier this year, several other cruise ships experienced becoming isolated hotbeds of infection. Passengers and crew were prohibited from disembarking and therefore contracted coronavirus en masse from just a few infected individuals on board. The Diamond Princess, perhaps the most well-known case, was quarantined off Japan's coast for almost a month after a passenger tested positive already after leaving the ship. By the end of the 14-day mandatory quarantine, 705 passengers and crew out of a total of 3,711 were infected and seven had died.
