Vacations are usually supposed to be stress free and a getaway from most worries, but lately that hasn’t been the case. Since the coronavirus has rapidly spread across most of the world, traveling has put many people at high risk for getting the virus.
Sharon, a 34 year-old mother of two from Visalia in the Central Valley, traveled to Ensenada, Baja Mexico in early March. She and eleven of her friends went on a cruise to celebrate a bachelorette party. The cruise line she traveled on was the Carnival Imagination.
The cruise vacation was from March 5-8. Sharon said, “The virus was somewhat of a concern to me and my friends I was with, but we had a plan to bring Clorox wipes to sanitize our rooms and use plenty of hand sanitizer. We didn’t expect it to be as big of an issue as people were making it out to be. We thought the major issue was the cruise ships in Europe. We thought it wasn’t going to happen to us.”
The cruise was scheduled to dock around 7:30 a.m. on March 8, but the passengers weren’t able to get off the ship until 6 p.m. because the Carnival Panorama was ahead of them blocking the port. The precaution was taken because a passenger on the cruise ship had symptoms of the COVID-19 virus but was later cleared.
Sharon explained, “No one else I was with seemed to be sick on the cruise. My roommate had a case of what we thought was food poisoning, she got up early in the morning of the debarkation and was in the bathroom, but she ended up testing negative for the coronavirus. There were twelve girls all together for our bachelorette party, and now three weeks later, 7 of us have tested positive, two tested negative, and three remaining were not allowed to test because they didn’t have any symptoms.”
A large number of cruise ships have reported passenger’s getting the coronavirus. According to an article by shiptechnology.com, “Large number of people in confined spaces on cruise ships make onboard tourists prone to infectious diseases such as the coronavirus. In 2019 alone, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported ten outbreaks on cruise ships,” continuing, “In 2020, the coronavirus outbreak that originated in Wuhan, China, is the latest threat to the cruise industry where bookings are done much in advance. At least 13 cruise ships have reported suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19.”
Sharon is an active healthy person who goes on walks and hikes in her free time. She did not have any symptoms of feeling ill while on her vacation until the day after she got home. She describes her symptoms as “a low fever along with some fatigue, muscle aches, and shortness of breath. Once the fever was gone I experienced a dry itchy cough and some shortness of breath for the next several days.”
Sharon has to quarantine in her home until all her symptoms are gone and a nurse releases her. When asked about her daily life with the virus, she said, “It hasn’t affected me too much. I was asked to work from home once I returned from the cruise, but I have been able to work from my computer everyday without issue. I just pushed through the fever. For me the worst of it was not as bad as the flu.”
While still in recovery and isolation, a caseworker is assigned to call Sharon almost everyday to check if she has been taking her temperature. She said, “my temperature has been normal since March 10th.”
