Port Everglades worker confirmed as COVID-19 patient as Mike Pence visits cruise execs
Florida’s governor said Saturday that a worker who had contact with cruise line passengers at Port Everglades has been infected with novel coronavirus, confirming the information only minutes after Vice President Mike Pence visited the same Broward County port to discuss how to better insulate the cruising industry from a global outbreak.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the state health department believes the patient, an elderly man, worked either as a cruise line employee or a contractor “checking people off the ships.” A spokeswoman for the port said the patient did not escort passengers off the ship, but helped cruise passengers navigate the port for a contractor hired by cruise lines to provide guidance and greetings to passengers.
Either way, the new information raises the possibility that a coronavirus patient had interactions with passengers coming in and out of one of the country’s busiest ports for cruising. And it underscores the crisis facing the industry, as well as the problems the state is facing when it comes to providing prompt and accurate information about an outbreak that is ever-expanding.
“There are a lot of people in the public who wish they could get more” information, Broward County Mayor Dale Holness said during a brief interview at the port.
State, local and federal officials gathered at Port Everglades Saturday with Pence, the head of the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus, to talk with cruising executives about protocols intended to limit exposure to cruising guests.
The meeting took place as the Florida Department of Health announced new coronavirus cases, and as the state government activated its Emergency Management Division. Meanwhile, health officials worked to track down and “self-isolate” people who might have come in contact with the infected Port Everglades employee.
It’s unclear how wide the web might reach: Shamarial Roberson, Florida’s deputy secretary of health, did not address a question about how many people the port worker might have come into contact with.
Port spokeswoman Ellen Kennedy said she didn’t know the last day the employee came to work at the port, but stressed that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was clear that the port was safe for business.
“We’re exercising an extreme level of cleaning and sanitizing to ensure that we keep people safe as possible at the port — more so now than ever before,” Holness said. “We always did but we’ve stepped that up.”
The Florida Department of Health website identified 10 Florida residents in the state who have tested positive for coronavirus, five Floridians outside the state, and one person in the state who was visiting from elsewhere.
Only hours earlier, the director of the state health department’s Broward office had declined to release basic information, such as travel history, about the county’s two known cases during a press conference. The cases were announced Friday night by the state, along with another case in Lee County — one of two coronavirus deaths reported in Florida.
The fatal Lee County case wasn’t reported until one day after the woman died, which U.S. Sen. Rick Scott said in a Fox News interview Saturday left him “very surprised.” Scott called on the state to be more transparent, which irked DeSantis.
“I did see the comments,” DeSantis told reporters Saturday. “Fact of the matter is, as soon as the individual tested positive yesterday evening, that was put out immediately.”
The health department announced additional cases Saturday in Charlotte, Lee, Okaloosa and Volusia counties. The department also sent out a notice urging anyone who traveled on a Nile River cruise in February to self-isolate after multiple reports linking coronavirus patients — including two in Florida — to Nile River visits.
DeSantis said the Lee County patient who died had traveled to the Dominican Republic. The new patient identified Saturday in Charlotte County is a woman in her 50s who had traveled to the Middle East. And a 72-year-old man from Santa Rosa County whose death was also announced Friday had a “similar” travel history.
New cases are escalating now that the state has the capability to test for coronavirus at its own labs, cutting down on wait times for results. DeSantis said the health department also now has coronavirus testing kits and contractors to test for coronavirus upon request.
“We have the capacity to test,” he said. “If you’re somebody and a physician recommends you get tested, by all means do it.”
This article has been updated to correct information about the sex of the Santa Rosa patient. The patient was a man.
Miami Herald reporter Taylor Dolven contributed to this report.
