Passengers, who were aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship, have been placed in federal quarantine, yet complain they lack food, medical attention or sanitary accommodations. The approximately 2,000 passengers have been kept at military bases across the country after the Trump administration agreed to allow them to abandon the ship.

According to Michelle Saunders, a Gurnee, Illinois resident, they have been awaiting medical attention and other basic necessities since they were evacuated from the ship. On Saturday, Saunders said that no one had checked their temperature for almost two days — a standard protocol to detect infection. In addition, they have had to wait twelve hours for food and lacked a towel in their room.

Saunders, who is with her grandmother Hildegard Baxpehler, 83, of Glenview, Illinois, said that there is no social distancing between passengers, although they have been asked to wear masks when they step out of their rooms. Sanders adds that her grandmother is frightened and barely eating. “It shouldn't be my job to keep her safe,” Saunders said. “It should be their job, and they are not doing it.”

On Friday, President Donald Trump praised Vice President Mike Pence for the “tremendous success out in Oakland” in reference to evacuation of the Grand Princess, which had detected the coronavirus in two passengers and 19 crew members when the ship docked in Oakland, California on Monday.

The passengers have been distributed between the Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Georgia, the Travis Air Force Base in California and the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas. Although they had been confined to their rooms on the ship, they were then transported en masse on buses and airplanes to the military bases.

On Saturday, the quarantined passengers expressed their concerns about lack of food, medical attention and information during a call with representatives from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the cruise line. “I am just concerned for everybody because we do have a lot of older people in these buildings and they are not being cared for,” said one woman, who added that many people had received little or no food.

“We thank you for your patience as we try to resolve medication, luggage, linens and room equipment problems,” HHS spokesperson Cheri Rice told the passengers on the call, admitting that they faced “many significant logistical challenges.”

Meanwhile, Princess Cruises official Jeff Salvatore told passengers, “You are not alone in this; we’re all with you. We are doing everything we can to make this basically as calm and pleasing as possible.”

Barb May, 63, from Bloomington, Illinois, said that medical care was seriously lacking and that she had been unable to refill a prescription until a local pharmacy agreed to deliver it. “We shouldn’t have to go beg for water. We shouldn’t have to go stand at the fence to get food,” May said. “We’re probably being treated worse than prisoners right now.”

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Another passenger taken to Travis Air Force Base in California said she and her two young daughters had no soap, heat or clean sheets. She also noted that there was a lack of testing for coronavirus and working toilets in some rooms.

Source: USA Today