Cruise Passengers Learned of Coronavirus Cases From Mike Pence Announcement

On Friday, Vice President Mike Pence told reporters that 21 people onboard the Grand Princess cruise ship tested positive for the coronavirus. That ship is currently being quarantined off the coast of California. The reveal of the number of infected via news conference may have come as a surprise to those who are stuck on that ship because, apparently, no one had told them beforehand. Subsequently, some people onboard were quite pissed at the captain.

How cruise ships are still operating, well, that’s one of life’s great mysteries. 

The ship then apologized to their unlucky passengers by announcing that, they too, were kept in the dark before Pence’s address to the media. That info comes from CNN Los Angeles’ Jon Passantino. As you can also see from Passantino, most of the hapless voyagers coughing their lungs out are crew members; as if working on one of those ships didn’t suck bad enough:

Those 21 positive diagnoses came out of a total of 46 people who were tested. Out of the other 25, 24 were negative and another was inconclusive. There are more than 3,500 people on the ship (2,422 of which are classified as guests). The next plan, according to Pence, is to work alongside the state of California to bring the ship into a noncommercial port and then “quarantine those aboard as necessary.” If you happen to be on the ship reading this on your phone while cramped in your room, here’s hoping you didn’t learn about that just now.