Coronavirus: a Briton died on the virus-stricken cruise ship

It's confirmed that there is a British National among the four deaths on the coronavirus-stricken cruise ship.

Zaandam is the name of the cruise ship that is carrying more than 200 British nationals and its sister ship, the Rotterdam, passed through the Panama Canal on Monday after being denied entry to several ports. Both ships are seeking to dock in Florida later this week, but local authorities are in dispute over whether to let passengers disembark, with the state’s hospitals already burdened with Covid-19 cases.

Among the four people who died due to coronavirus on this cruise ship, one was a Briton.

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A Briton died on the virus-stricken cruise ship

Passengers at Zaandam have been confirmed with nine people on board positive with Coronavirus and 189 others reporting flu-like symptoms. According to a spokesman for Zaandam, the name of the cruise ship, a British National is among four people who died on the Coronavirus-stricken cruise ship. Governor Ron DeSantis told a news conference on Tuesday that Florida’s healthcare resources were already stretched too thin by the coronavirus outbreak to take on the Zaandam’s caseload.

However, Trump said at the White House’s daily coronavirus briefing that he would ask DeSantis to allow the ships to dock in Florida. “They’re dying on the ship,” Trump said. “I’m going to do what’s right. Not only for us but for humanity”. In South Florida, Sun-Sentinel newspaper in an opinion piece, the company’s president, Orlando Ashford, pleaded with officials and residents to let the passengers disembark. “The Covid-19 situation is one of the most urgent tests of our common humanity,” he wrote. “To slam the door in the face of these people betrays our deepest human values.”

Originally, Zaandam departed from Buenos Aires on 7 March – a day before the US state department advised people to avoid cruise travel and before any substantial restrictions were in place in Florida. The ship had been scheduled to stop in San Antonio, Chile, then complete another 20-day cruise to arrive in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on 7 April. But since 15 March, the Zaandam has assumed pariah-like status, having been denied entry at a succession of ports.