Cruise ship worker in Merida hospital with coronavirus, family friend says

The Hospital Regional de Alta Especialidad de la Península de Yucatán is one of three health facilities in Merida qualified to treat COVID-19 patients. Photo: Flickr

What became of the four crew members infected with coronavirus after the Marella Explorer 2 anchored off Yucatan after being turned away in Barbados?

At least one of the cruise ship workers was admitted to the Hospital Regional del Alta Especialidad de la Península de Yucatán, a family friend told YEL. Frantic relatives in Greece have been unable to reach anyone to check on his condition, she said.

“His wife and 2 children are in Greece and are trying to get an update with no results,” said the family friend, who said she was unsuccessful in reaching the hospital, embassy and government officials.

Official information about the ship’s passengers has been issued in piecemeal fashion, so rumors abound. Forty-nine British citizens were escorted by Naval personnel in Progreso and sent to the Merida airport to fly home on a chartered plane, the federal government said after the fact.

Later it was learned that at least two passengers stayed behind, being treated in the hospital. But the fate of the stricken crew members was not reported.

Yucatan registered zero COVID-19 deaths until Friday when a presumably local man, 37, and a British tourist, 70, died. Although the real number is certainly higher, the official number of active coronavirus cases in Yucatan is 61. That does not count people in the state who contracted the virus elsewhere: a woman who entered from Canada, and another from Peru. It also does not include the vast majority of people here, some asymptomatic, who have not been tested.

Blunting the pandemic’s economic impact, the Yucatecan government will announce today in the Official Gazette the operating rules of the State Plan to Boost the Economy, Jobs and Health, seeking to channel support to those who need it most. The plan will accept applications for support beginning Monday.

Across Mexico, 60 coronavirus patients died and the number of infections increased to 1,688, including 178 new cases in the last 24 hours.

Official information about coronavirus is on the Yucatan COVID-19 website.

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