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CNN Saturday Morning News
Virus Spreads Through Disney Cruise Ship Magic
Aired November 23, 2002 - 07:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLOWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And now to our top story this morning. A voyage aboard Disney's cruise ship Magic was anything but magic for hundreds of passengers on board. A stomach virus spread like wildfire through that ship, which has now returned to port for a thorough cleaning.
Let's go to CNN's Miles O'Brien, who is joining us from Port Canaveral, Florida, with the very latest.
Miles, good morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Catherine.
Just within the past hour, the Magic steamed into port here after a week-long cruise that I'm sure many people on board would characterize as miserable. At least 100 people on board are still in their quarters under the orders of doctors and the ship's captain after they came down with gastroenteritis. Not exactly sure what the viral cause of that is. The Centers for Disease Control has investigators on the scene. They'll be looking into that in the coming days and weeks.
But it looks very much, at least circumstantially, like yet another outbreak of that Norwalk virus that we've been telling you so much about, on this vessel and, as a matter of fact, on another cruise liner, which is home ported down in the Fort Lauderdale area.
Let's take a look at a live picture now from Tower Camp, from one of our affiliates, WFTV, helping us out with this shot. As you see the vessel, 32 people -- hundred people on board, 100 of them with terrible symptoms, flu-like symptoms of diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps.
This particular incident happened on Wednesday. For most of the people, it'll run its course over the next two or three days, but in some cases, it can be life-threatening if you have another medical condition, for example, if you have cancer and are on chemotherapy. This is something that would be considered a very high-risk situation.
We're told that the disinfection of this ship already began in the middle of this cruise. Interestingly, the Centers for Disease Control conduct spot-checks on these cruise liners, and this being a Disney cruise liner, it was awarded for -- high marks for being clean. Nevertheless, this particular virus is spread any number of ways. The water supply could have become contaminated, there could have been some raw shellfish on board that was eaten that might have spread it, or perhaps somebody in the kitchen might have been carrying this virus one way or another.
The common denominator in this is sort of unhealthy practices after going to the bathroom, and I'll just leave it at that. It's morning time, and I won't give you any more details. You probably don't want to know them.
The fact of the matter is, when people get in close quarters like this and something like this starts getting spread around, it can spread almost like wildfire.
What's interesting about this morning is, we've seen a steady stream of people pulling their bags up to queue up for yet another week long cruise. As far as we know, according to the Disney officials, this ship, the Magic, will steam out this afternoon for another week long voyage. We have no reason to believe they will do otherwise.
However, we do expect to hear from the president of the cruise line in the 9:00 a.m. hour, hopefully give us some more information on what lies ahead for Disney and whether the Centers for Disease Control will perhaps request to them that they do some more significant disinfecting, as we've seen a little further south in Florida, Catherine.
CALLOWAY: Well, Miles, so the disinfection began, the disinfecting process began, they say, before they came to port. But seems like rather quick action to be able to disinfect something as large as that ship by this afternoon.
O'BRIEN: Absolutely. And I'm -- you know, when you do something like this, as we've been reading and telling you all about, they literally go through every surface and wipe it down with Clorox, things that are, you know, fabric or whatever are steam-cleaned, lot of things get disposed of, because this virus is particularly challenging to root out and get rid of.
So whether that can all be accomplished in a day, well, I guess that might be magic.
CALLOWAY: Thank you for not sharing all the details earlier that you do have on what the problems were.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I think -- well...
CALLOWAY: Little too much information...
O'BRIEN: Yes, no need to go too far.
CALLOWAY: No, we don't need to go -- All right, Miles, thank you very much.
O'BRIEN: All right.
CALLOWAY: Miles O'Brien in Florida.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired November 23, 2002 - 07:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLOWAY, CNN ANCHOR: And now to our top story this morning. A voyage aboard Disney's cruise ship Magic was anything but magic for hundreds of passengers on board. A stomach virus spread like wildfire through that ship, which has now returned to port for a thorough cleaning.
Let's go to CNN's Miles O'Brien, who is joining us from Port Canaveral, Florida, with the very latest.
Miles, good morning.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Catherine.
Just within the past hour, the Magic steamed into port here after a week-long cruise that I'm sure many people on board would characterize as miserable. At least 100 people on board are still in their quarters under the orders of doctors and the ship's captain after they came down with gastroenteritis. Not exactly sure what the viral cause of that is. The Centers for Disease Control has investigators on the scene. They'll be looking into that in the coming days and weeks.
But it looks very much, at least circumstantially, like yet another outbreak of that Norwalk virus that we've been telling you so much about, on this vessel and, as a matter of fact, on another cruise liner, which is home ported down in the Fort Lauderdale area.
Let's take a look at a live picture now from Tower Camp, from one of our affiliates, WFTV, helping us out with this shot. As you see the vessel, 32 people -- hundred people on board, 100 of them with terrible symptoms, flu-like symptoms of diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps.
This particular incident happened on Wednesday. For most of the people, it'll run its course over the next two or three days, but in some cases, it can be life-threatening if you have another medical condition, for example, if you have cancer and are on chemotherapy. This is something that would be considered a very high-risk situation.
We're told that the disinfection of this ship already began in the middle of this cruise. Interestingly, the Centers for Disease Control conduct spot-checks on these cruise liners, and this being a Disney cruise liner, it was awarded for -- high marks for being clean. Nevertheless, this particular virus is spread any number of ways. The water supply could have become contaminated, there could have been some raw shellfish on board that was eaten that might have spread it, or perhaps somebody in the kitchen might have been carrying this virus one way or another.
The common denominator in this is sort of unhealthy practices after going to the bathroom, and I'll just leave it at that. It's morning time, and I won't give you any more details. You probably don't want to know them.
The fact of the matter is, when people get in close quarters like this and something like this starts getting spread around, it can spread almost like wildfire.
What's interesting about this morning is, we've seen a steady stream of people pulling their bags up to queue up for yet another week long cruise. As far as we know, according to the Disney officials, this ship, the Magic, will steam out this afternoon for another week long voyage. We have no reason to believe they will do otherwise.
However, we do expect to hear from the president of the cruise line in the 9:00 a.m. hour, hopefully give us some more information on what lies ahead for Disney and whether the Centers for Disease Control will perhaps request to them that they do some more significant disinfecting, as we've seen a little further south in Florida, Catherine.
CALLOWAY: Well, Miles, so the disinfection began, the disinfecting process began, they say, before they came to port. But seems like rather quick action to be able to disinfect something as large as that ship by this afternoon.
O'BRIEN: Absolutely. And I'm -- you know, when you do something like this, as we've been reading and telling you all about, they literally go through every surface and wipe it down with Clorox, things that are, you know, fabric or whatever are steam-cleaned, lot of things get disposed of, because this virus is particularly challenging to root out and get rid of.
So whether that can all be accomplished in a day, well, I guess that might be magic.
CALLOWAY: Thank you for not sharing all the details earlier that you do have on what the problems were.
O'BRIEN: Yes, I think -- well...
CALLOWAY: Little too much information...
O'BRIEN: Yes, no need to go too far.
CALLOWAY: No, we don't need to go -- All right, Miles, thank you very much.
O'BRIEN: All right.
CALLOWAY: Miles O'Brien in Florida.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
