On the Grand Princess cruise ship, anchored off the California coast near San Francisco, 21 cases of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus infection were detected.

This was announced by US Vice President Mike Pence in the evening on Friday, March 6, in Washington, specifying that we are talking about 19 crew members and two passengers.

It is expected that in the coming weekend, March 7 and 8, the cruise ship will be transferred to one of the non-profit ports. So far, 46 people on the liner have passed the test for a new coronavirus. According to Pence, the next step should be testing all the people on board, which is about 2,400 passengers and 1,100 crew members. “If necessary, we will quarantine,” the New York Times quoted Mike Pence as saying..

According to American media, the US National Guard soldiers delivered the coronavirus test kits to the ship, who descended onto the ship by cable from a helicopter.

Grand Princess belongs to the same company as the Diamond Princess liner, which stood in February 2020 for two weeks in the port of Japanese Yokohama due to the outbreak of coronavirus on board. Then the infection was detected in more than 700 people, six of them subsequently died from a pulmonary disease caused by this infection. It is reported by Deutsche Welle.