Mexico conducts coronavirus tests on 6 000 cruise ship passengers

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By dpa Time of article published20m ago

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Mexico City – Some 6,000 people are being held on a cruise ship at the Mexican port of Cozumel while medical experts conduct tests to rule out the presence of the novel coronavirus, officials said Thursday.

The MSC Meraviglia has docked on Cozumel island off the coast of Mexico’s eastern state of Quintana Roo after being turned away at two previous destinations – Jamaica and Grand Cayman – because a crew member had been diagnosed with a common flu.

Quintana Roo state governor Carlos Joaquin said entry into the port had been granted “due to weather conditions,” but that permission to disembark would only be given once medical officials had given the all-clear that no one on board had contracted the deadly virus.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said although it was important to uphold medical standards, the country would not succumb to hysteria surrounding the virus.

“We cannot close our ports, our airports,” Lopez Obrador said in his daily press conference.

Cruise liner MSC Meraviglia is pictured while waiting for permission to dock at Punta Langosta. Picture: Florent Serfari/Reuters
Tourists walk by the MSC Meraviglia, whose passengers are waiting for Mexican health authorities to finish testing them for the coronavirus while berthed at a dock in Punta Langosta. Picture: Florent Serfari/Reuters
The MSC Meraviglia is berthed at a dock in Punta Langosta after two Caribbean ports denied the ship entry due to fears, later disproven, that a crew member was infected with the coronavirus. Picture: Florent Serfari/Reuters
The upper deck pool area of the MSC Meraviglia. The cruise ship was turned away in Feb. 2020 by two nations, Grand Cayman and Jamaica, after it reported one crew member from the Philippines was sick with common seasonal flu, and is being allowed to dock at Mexico’s Caribbean island of Cozumel and passengers will be allowed to disembark. Picture: Thomas Padilla/AP

Latin America’s first case of the coronavirus, which originated in December in China’s Wuhan region and has since spread to more than 40 countries, was confirmed in Brazil on Wednesday.

dpa