Virus test kits lowered to cruise ship off California

Scrambling to keep the coronavirus at bay, officials ordered a cruise ship with 3,500 people aboard to stay back from the California coast Thursday until passengers and crew can be tested, after a traveler from its previous voyage died of the disease and at least two others became infected.

A Coast Guard helicopter lowered test kits onto the 951-foot (290-meter) Grand Princess by rope as the vessel lay at anchor off Northern California, and authorities said the results would be available on Friday.

Princess Cruise Lines said fewer than 100 people aboard had been identified for testing.

The precaution was prompted by the death of a Sacramento-area man who succumbed to the coronavirus after he had been on an earlier sailing of the ship, in February.

Two other passengers from that voyage have been hospitalized with the virus in Northern California, officials said.

Princess Cruise Lines said that no cases of the virus had been confirmed among those still on the ship. But dozens of passengers have had flu-like symptoms over the past two weeks or so, said Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of San Francisco's Department of Emergency Management.

The ship was returning to San Francisco after visiting Hawaii. Some of the passengers remained on board after sailing on its previous voyage, to the Mexican ports of Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas.