(VISALIA, Calif.) — All four people on board a small plane that crashed in California Saturday are dead, according to the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office. They were all related.
It is unknown what led to the crash.
Around 6:35 p.m. Saturday, deputies were called to the area of Road 68 and Avenue 288 near the Visalia Airport in Visalia, California, for a possible downed plane, authorities said.
When deputies arrived, they found a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza had crashed, killing all on board.
The National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday it is investigating the crash.
ABC News California affiliate KFSN reported the plane crashed just a few seconds after taking off.
Late Monday night, the Tulare County Sheriff’s Office identified the victims as 78-year-old David Chelini, his 58-year-old nephew, Steven Chelini, and his two daughters, 46-year-old Karen Baker and 48-year-old Donna Chelini.
All of the victims were from the Sacramento area.
“Sheriff Boudreaux asks that you keep the Chelini family in your prayers during this incredibly difficult time,” the sheriff’s office said.
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 789,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 60% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Latest headlines:
-France shuts down night clubs as cases rise
-2nd omicron case detected in Los Angeles
-Northeast sees highest number of child cases since beginning of pandemic
-NYC mandating vaccines for all private sector employees
-Man who became one of the 1st omicron cases in US speaks out
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern.
Dec 06, 8:12 pm
Omicron detected in Harris County, Texas
Harris County, Texas, Judge Linda Hidalgo tweeted Monday night that the area recorded its first case of the omicron COVID-19 variant.
The judge shared few details about the case but said the patient was “a woman in her 40s from [north west] Harris County with no recent travel history.”
ABC News’ Scottye Kennedy
Dec 06, 6:05 pm
France shuts down night clubs as cases rise
French Prime Minister Jean Castex announced that the country’s night clubs will be closed for four weeks starting Friday, amid rising cases in the country.
“We are doing this because the virus is spreading amongst young people, even those who are vaccinated, because it is extremely difficult to keep a mask on at these venues,” Castex said at a news conference Monday.
The decision came after the French Health Defense Council held a meeting to decide on what new health measures have to be taken to stop the spread of the virus in France.
Castex also announced that primary school students would have to wear face masks at recess and between classes — not only inside the classroom — starting Thursday.
France will not follow other European Union countries, like Germany and Italy, that are imposing restrictions on unvaccinated residents, the prime minister said.
ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Dec 06, 5:57 pm
2nd omicron case detected in Los Angeles
Los Angeles health officials announced Monday a second case of the omicron variant was detected in the county.
The patient is a student at the University of Southern California, who was returning from a trip from the East Coast, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
The student likely acquired the infection outside of LA county, health officials said in a statement.
“The individual is fully vaccinated, had mild symptoms, and is self-isolating,” the health department said in a statement.
Officials at USC said the student “did not attend classes or organized activities on campus during their infectious period.”
ABC News’ Bonnie McClean and Jen Watts
Dec 06, 3:17 pm
Northeast sees highest number of child cases since beginning of pandemic
Another 133,000 children tested positive for COVID-19 last week, according to a new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association. Hospital admissions among children have also increased by 20% over the last week, according to federal data.
The Northeast is currently seeing its highest number of child cases since the beginning of pandemic, though the Midwest continues to see the highest number of pediatric cases.
Twenty million children ages 5 to 17 have received at least one vaccine dose, accounting for about 38.3% of that population.
Severe illness due to COVID-19 remains “uncommon” among children, the two organizations wrote in the report. However, AAP and CHA continue to warn that there is an urgent need to collect more data on the long-term consequences of the pandemic on children, “including ways the virus may harm the long-term physical health of infected children, as well as its emotional and mental health effects.”
(NEW YORK) — As the criminal trial of British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime companion of serial sex offense Jeffrey Epstein, entered its second week, a woman identified by the pseudonym “Kate” testified that Maxwell recruited and groomed her for sexual activity with Epstein when she was a young woman, under the pretense that they were “friends.”
“Kate” said she was approximately 17 years old and living in London when she met Maxwell during a trip to Paris. “Kate” gave Maxwell her phone number, she said, and Maxwell called her a few weeks later to invite her over for tea. “Kate” was excited, she said, to have made such a “sophisticated and elegant” connection.
“She seemed to be everything I wanted to be,” she said. “She seemed as excited as I was to have a new friend.”
Within a few weeks, “Kate” said,” she was engaging in sexually explicit massages with Epstein at Maxwell’s London townhouse, which was in the same neighborhood where “Kate” then lived with her mother.
Prior to her testimony, Judge Alison Nathan read to the jury a “limiting instruction” informing them that “Kate” was over the legal age of consent at all relevant times and locations, and therefore the jury cannot convict Maxwell of any charges in the indictment based on her testimony. The government is thus only permitted to describe her as a “witness” but not a “victim.”
Prosecutors argued that “Kate’s” testimony was relevant to show Maxwell’s modus operandi and that Maxwell knew that massages with Epstein would be sexualized.
During her first trip to Maxwell’s home in London, “Kate” said she noticed lots of photographs of Maxwell with an older man with peppered hair. The man in the pictures, she learned later, was Epstein, and Maxwell introduced “Kate” to him as “the girl I told you about” on her next visit.
Maxwell, “Kate” said, encouraged her to massage Epstein’s feet and shoulders. Epstein was “very approving,” she said, but then he took a phone call, “Kate” said, and Maxwell ushered her out. A few weeks later, “Kate” said, Maxwell called again, claiming a massage therapist had cancelled at the last minute, and she asked if “Kate” could “do her a favor” by coming over to massage Epstein again.
This time, “Kate” said Maxwell led her upstairs to a small, dimly-lit room with a massage table. Epstein was wearing a robe, but he took it off after Kate entered. Maxwell, she said, closed the door. Asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lara Pomerantz if Epstein initiated sexual conduct with her during the massage, Kate answered, “Yes.”
On her way out, “Kate” said Maxwell asked, “How did it go? Did you have fun? Was it good? She seemed very excited and happy and thanked me again.”
Two days later, “Kate” said, she returned to give Epstein another massage, and Maxwell lead her to the same room where further sexual contact with Epstein occurred. Afterwards, “Kate” said, Maxwell told her, “You’re such a good girl. … He really likes you.”
“Kate” traveled with Epstein and Maxwell occasionally over the next several years, she said, visiting them in Florida, New York and the Virgin Islands. Kate said she understood Maxwell’s role to be “to take care of Jeffrey’s needs” and noted that she seemed very involved in managing the properties and staff.
Maxwell’s attorney have sought through the case to distance her from Epstein, suggesting in their opening statements that Epstein hid his prurient activities from others, including Maxwell.
“Jeffrey Epstein manipulated the world around him and the people around him,” Maxwell attorney Bobbi Sternheim said last week. “He compartmentalized his life, showing only what he wanted to show to the people around him, including Ghislaine.”
During one visit to Epstein’s Palm Beach estate, “Kate” said she arrived at her guest room to find a “schoolgirl outfit” laid out on her bed. When she asked Maxwell why it was there, “Kate” said Maxwell told her she “thought it would be fun for you to take Jeffrey his tea in this outfit.”
Asked why she continued to spend time Epstein and Maxwell despite what she alleges was happening, “Kate” said she “wanted to maintain a relationship with Ghislaine.”
“I thought,” “Kate said, “she was going to be my friend.”
During cross examination by Sternheim, “Kate” acknowledged she was in contact with Epstein through 2012 — including emails before, during and after he was incarcerated in Palm Beach. And in one email correspondence in 2011, “Kate” was the one who initiated contact with Epstein to say she wanted to visit him in New York.
“Kate” said was not in contact with Maxwell during that same period.
During her testimony, “Kate” acknowledged that she had abused alcohol, cocaine and sleeping pills in her teens and young adulthood but she denied that substance abuse could have impacted her memories of Epstein and Maxwell.
“The memories I have of significant events in my life have never changed,” she said.
(NEW YORK) — In a report shared with the family of Emmett Till, the Justice Department said that it had concluded that the investigation into the 14-year-old’s murder and decided the case should be closed without a new federal prosecution.
While the department and the FBI called Till’s murder “one of the most horrific examples of the violence routinely inflicted upon Black residents,” in a letter to Till’s family, they said that the new investigation did not uncover new facts that differed from those found in the previous investigation.
Officials from the Department of Justice and the FBI, including Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Kristen Clarke, met privately with Till’s family to share the findings of the report.
“Today is a day that we’ll never forget,” Rev. Wheeler Parker, Till’s cousin who was in the house the night Till was kidnapped, said at a press conference Monday.
“Officially, the Emmett Till case has been closed after 66 years,” Parker said. “For 66 years we have suffered pain for his loss, and I suffered tremendously because of the way that they painted him.”
Till, 14, was killed in 1955 while visiting family in Mississippi after he was accused of whistling at and making sexual advances toward a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. He was kidnapped, badly beaten and found in the Tallahatchie River several days later.
Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam were charged with Till’s murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The two men later confessed to the killing in a paid magazine interview months later.
Till’s cousin Parker — who was 16 at the time — was in the house when Roy Bryant and Milam came looking for Till.
“I’m waiting to be shot, and I close my eyes,” Parker recalled in an interview with ABC News for an upcoming documentary series “Let the World See.” “I wasn’t shot, I opened my eyes and they’re passing by me. The guy said we’re looking for fat boy, the fat boy from Chicago.”
“They left with him, and that’s the last time we saw him alive,” he added.
Till’s murder came at a time of intense racial unrest and animosity. When his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, demanded an open casket at his funeral, it helped spark the civil rights movement.
The Justice Department opened an investigation into Till’s killing in 2004 but determined that there was no federal jurisdiction due to the statute of limitations. The investigation was originally closed in 2007 after a local grand jury declined to indict anyone on state charges.
It was reopened in 2018, following the publication of Timothy Tyson’s book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” in which Carolyn Bryant revealed she had not been telling the truth when she testified that Till had grabbed her and uttered obscenities. The Bryant family now deny that she had recanted her allegations.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — For years, thousands of sexual assault kits sat on the shelves in Wisconsin crime labs, leaving victims and investigators desperately waiting for crucial data, according to state officials.
But new legislation that went into effect Monday aims to clear up this backlog and provide victims with more information about their investigations.
Gov. Tony Evers signed two bills that have been in the works since 2019 that establish a detailed procedure for the collection and processing of sexual assault kits. The bills also create a tracking system where victims can see the progress of the tests.
“Victims and survivors of sexual assault have already gone through the unimaginable, and their path to justice should never be obstructed or delayed,” Evers said in a statement.
Under the new laws, when a health care professional collects sexual assault evidence, a victim will have the choice to report the incident to law enforcement.
If the victim chooses to report the incident, officers have up to 72 hours to collect the kit from the health care professional, and then 14 days to send the kit to the state crime laboratories for analysis.
If the victim chooses not to report the incident, the health care provider is required to send the kit to the state crime laboratories for storage within 72 hours. The kit will remain in storage for up to 10 years, and if a victim reconsiders reporting the incident, the kit will be tested.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice will track the kits and maintain the database for the victims.
The two bills were approved by the Wisconsin state Senate in 2019, but didn’t pass in both houses until this year.
Wisconsin is the latest state to address its sexual assault kit backlog.
Virginia and Missouri have also taken efforts to streamline the process and test thousands of kits that were in storage at labs in their jurisdictions.
(NEW YORK) — A suburban New York man threatened to attack the 2021 New York City Pride March with “firepower” that would “make the 2016 Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting look like a cakewalk,” federal prosecutors said Monday.
Robert Fehring, 74, of Bayport, New York, allegedly sent at least 60 letters threatening to assault, shoot and bomb LGBTQ-affiliated individuals, organizations and businesses. He was arrested Monday morning.
A search of his home last month turned up photographs from a 2021 Pride event in East Meadow, New York, two loaded shotguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, two stun guns and a stamped envelope addressed to an LGBTQ-affiliated attorney containing the remains of a dead bird, federal prosecutors said.
“As alleged, the defendant’s hate-filled invective and threats of violence directed at members of the LGBTQ community have no place in our society and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said.
Forty-nine people were killed, and dozens were injured in the mass shooting Fehring reportedly referenced at Pulse nightclub, an LGBTQ nightclub in Orlando, Florida, in June 2016.
Fehring has reportedly been sending these kinds of threatening letters since at least 2013, according to the unsealed criminal complaint. In them, he threatened the use of firearms and explosives.
Along with the letter threatening the New York City Pride March — in which he wrote there would “be radio-controlled devices placed at numerous strategic places” — the criminal complaint also quoted from a letter Fehring allegedly sent to the organizer of the Pride event in East Meadow.
“[W]e were right there you…FREAK!!! They couldn’t get a shot off at you, slithering around the back stage area like a snake. Too many cops. Very disappointed. But your time has come. … They are out to KILL you….and your boyfriend. You are being watched. No matter how long it takes, you will be taken out…. high-powered bullet…. bomb….knife…. whatever it takes,” the letter said.
Fehring will appear before a judge Monday afternoon.
(NEW YORK) — The family of Emmett Till is expected to address the final report from the FBI and Justice Department’s investigation into Till’s 1955 murder at a press conference on Monday.
Till, 14, was killed while visiting family in Mississippi after he was accused of whistling at and making sexual advances toward a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. He was kidnapped, badly beaten and found in the Tallahatchie River several days later.
Carolyn Bryant’s husband, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother J.W. Milam were charged with Till’s murder and acquitted by an all-white jury. The two men later confessed to the killing in a paid magazine interview months later.
Rev. Wheeler Parker, Till’s cousin — who was 16 at the time — was in the house when Roy Bryant and Milam came looking for Till.
“I’m waiting to be shot, and I close my eyes,” Parker recalled in an interview with ABC News for an upcoming documentary series “Let the World See.” “I wasn’t shot, I opened my eyes and they’re passing by me. The guy said we’re looking for fat boy, the fat boy from Chicago.”
“They left with him, and that’s the last time we saw him alive,” he added.
Till’s murder came at a time of intense racial unrest and animosity. When his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, demanded an open casket at his funeral, it helped spark the civil rights movement.
The Justice Department opened an investigation into Till’s killing in 2004 but determined that there was no federal jurisdiction due to the statute of limitations. The investigation was originally closed in 2007 after a local grand jury declined to indict anyone on state charges.
It was reopened in 2018, following the publication of Timothy Tyson’s book “The Blood of Emmett Till,” in which Carolyn Bryant revealed she had not been telling the truth when she testified that Till had grabbed her and uttered obscenities. The Bryant family now deny that she had recanted her allegations.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — Billionaire investor and philanthropist Michael Steinhardt was forced to surrender $70 million worth of stolen antiquities and comply with a lifetime ban on collecting antiquities on Monday, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said.
Steinhardt had to give up 180 stolen antiquities, which court records said were looted and illegally smuggled out of 11 countries, trafficked by 12 criminal smuggling networks, and lacked verifiable provenance prior to appearing on the international art market.
The Larnax, a small coffin from the islands of Crete, Greece, dating back to 1400 BCE, was among the surrendered pieces.
The Larnax is valued at $1 million and was bought by Steinhardt for $575,000 in October 2016 from known antiquities trafficker Eugene Alexander, the DA said.
Payments for the piece were made using Seychelles-headquartered FAM Services and Satabank, a Malta-based financial institution that was suspended for money laundering, according to the DA’s office.
While complaining about a subpoena requesting provenance documentation for another stolen antiquity, Steinhardt pointed to the Larnax and said to an Antiquities Trafficking Unit investigator, “You see this piece? There’s no provenance for it. If I see a piece and I like it, then I buy it.”
The 180 pieces will now be returned expeditiously to their rightful owners in 11 countries: Bulgaria, Egypt, Greece, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Syria and Turkey.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s office conducted a multi-year, multi-national investigation into Steinhardt’s criminal conduct beginning in February 2017.
“For decades, Michael Steinhardt displayed a rapacious appetite for plundered artifacts without concern for the legality of his actions, the legitimacy of the pieces he bought and sold, or the grievous cultural damage he wrought across the globe,” Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance said Monday.
“His pursuit of ‘new’ additions to showcase and sell knew no geographic or moral boundaries, as reflected in the sprawling underworld of antiquities traffickers, crime bosses, money launderers, and tomb raiders he relied upon to expand his collection,” Vance added.
Investigators from the DA’s Antiquities Trafficking Unit learned that Steinhardt possessed looted antiquities at his apartment and office.
They initiated a grand jury criminal investigation into his acquisition, possession and sale of more than 1,000 antiquities since at least 1987.
There were 17 judicially-ordered search warrants and they conducted joint investigations with law enforcement authorities in the 11 countries mentioned above.
Vance said the investigation developed compelling evidence that 180 were stolen from their country of origin and “exhibited numerous other evidentiary indicators of looting.”
“Mr. Steinhardt is pleased that the District Attorney’s years-long investigation has concluded without any charges, and that items wrongfully taken by others will be returned to their native countries,” Steinhardt’s lawyers said in a statement Monday. “Many of the dealers from whom Mr. Steinhardt bought these items made specific representations as to the dealers’ lawful title to the items, and to their alleged provenance. To the extent these representations were false, Mr. Steinhardt has reserved his rights to seek recompense from the dealers involved.”
Most of the 180 seized antiquities first surfaced in the possession of individuals who law-enforcement authorities later determined to be antiquities traffickers — some of whom have been convicted of antiquities trafficking, and many of the seized antiquities were trafficked following civil unrest or looting.
Other items that were surrendered included the Stag’s Head Rhyton, valued currently at $3.5 million and the Ercolano Fresco, valued at $1 million.
(ATLANTA) — With the omicron variant now detected in at least 16 states in the U.S., Centers for Disease Control Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the agency is “following them closely” and that the number is “likely to rise.”
Walensky told This Week co-anchor Martha Raddatz that the CDC is still uncertain how transmissible the new variant is and how effective approved COVID-19 vaccines will work against it.
“We know it has many mutations, more mutations than prior variants,” she said. “Many of those mutations have been associated with more transmissible variants, with evasion of some of our therapeutics, and potentially evasion of some of our immunity, and that’s what we’re watching really carefully.”
The main concern right now, according to Walensky, is the dominant delta variant in the U.S. and the thousands of cases being diagnosed each day.
“We have about 90 to 100,000 cases a day right now in the United States, and 99.9% of them are the delta variant,” she said.
But South African studies have so far shown that omicron is about twice as transmissible as delta, and when pressed by Raddatz on what that means for the next six months in the U.S., Walensky said it depends on how the public mobilizes together.
“We know from a vaccine standpoint that the more mutations a single variant has, the more immunity you really need to have in order to combat that variant, which is why right now we’re really pushing to get more people vaccinated and more people boosted to really boost that immunity in every single individual,” Walensky said.
She said the CDC is “hopeful” that current vaccines will work to at least prevent severe disease and keep people out of the hospital.
Moderna is currently working on an omicron-specific booster should it be needed and Stephen Hoge, president of Moderna, said it could be ready early next year.
In an exclusive interview with Raddatz last week, Hoge said that a new variant-specific vaccine would be needed if the level of efficacy dropped below 50%.
Efficacy is a “really interesting, important question, but efficacy is sort of in itself on a spectrum,” Walensky said.
“Is it efficacy of preventing disease entirely? Preventing infection entirely, even if it just leads to a runny nose? Or is it efficacy of making sure people stay out of the hospital and prevent death?” Walensky questioned. “Certainly, we want to do the latter, absolutely first. And we’d really like to do the former as well.”
Walensky also said that the Food and Drug Administration is already in “conversations” with vaccine makers to streamline the authorization process of an omicron-specific booster and that the CDC would be moving “swiftly” after that approval.
When Raddatz asked how the U.S. can help to get even more shots into arms around the world and whether the omicron variant would have even appeared if more people in South Africa were vaccinated, Walensky touted U.S. donation efforts.
The Biden administration has pledged to donate more than 1 billion vaccine doses. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, as of Dec. 5, over 237 million doses have been delivered, 45 million have been shipped, leaving nearly 817 million pledged doses yet to be distributed. The White House has pledged to deliver 200 million more doses in the next 100 days to countries in need.
“We’re not only donating the vaccines for free and providing more vaccines to the globe than any — than every other country combined, but we at CDC work in 60 other countries providing on the ground assistance in vaccine safety and vaccine delivery and vaccine confidence, in vaccine effectiveness studies.”
Pressed by Raddatz if she fears a worst case scenario is possible with the omicron variant, Walensky said health experts are better situated to tackle the virus now than when it first appeared.
“We have so many more tools now than we did a year ago,” she said. “We know so many things that work against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, regardless of the variant that we’ve seen before.”
Walensky said getting immunity from the COVID-19 right now is “critically important” and continued to stress the importance of CDC regulations such as masking up in areas with high or substantial transmission.
The CDC director dismissed the idea of a nationwide mask mandate when Raddatz asked and said she’d “rather see people get vaccinated, boosted and follow our recommendations.”
“I’d rather not have requirements in order to do so,” she said. “People should do this for themselves.”
(NEW YORK) — As the COVID-19 pandemic has swept the globe, more than 5.2 million people have died from the disease worldwide, including over 788,000 Americans, according to real-time data compiled by Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Just 59.6% of the population in the United States is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Dec 06, 8:42 am
NYC mandating vaccines for all private sector employees
New York City Bill de Blasio on Monday announced a vaccine mandate for all private sector employees.
On the talk show Morning Joe, the mayor called the mandate, which goes into effective Dec. 27, a “preemptive strike.”
Dec 06, 8:01 am
Man who became one of the 1st omicron cases in US speaks out
Peter McGinn was one of the first known people in the United States to contract the omicron variant.
The 30-year-old Minnesota resident, who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and has received a booster shot, said he believes he became infected after attending a massive anime convention in New York City in late November. McGinn said he and several other attendees, who are also fully vaccinated, went out together after the event. Half of that group has since tested positive for COVID-19, according to McGinn.
McGinn said he tested positive after returning home to Minnesota and learning that a friend with whom he attended the convention had contracted the virus.
“I felt perfectly safe with the people that I was with, and so it never really crossed my mind to think that I had COVID,” McGinn told ABC News on Sunday. “I was just a little taken aback.”
Several dozen cases of omicron, a newly discovered variant of the novel coronavirus, have now been reported in at least 17 states across the country, according to Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Dec 06, 6:12 am
17 people test positive for COVID-19 on cruise ship in New Orleans
At least 17 people aboard a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship docked in New Orleans have tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Sunday.
The cases were found among both passengers and crew members on the Norwegian Breakaway cruise ship. A probable case of the omicron variant was also identified among a member of the crew, who is not a Louisiana resident and did not leave the ship, according to the Louisiana Department of Health.
Earlier Sunday, Louisiana confirmed its first case of omicron, which the health department said did not include any of the passengers or crew members from the Norwegian Breakaway.
The Norwegian Breakaway had departed New Orleans on Nov. 28 and returned this weekend as scheduled. Over the past week, the cruise ship made stops in Belize, Honduras and Mexico.
The ship docked in New Orleans on Sunday and all individuals on board were tested prior to disembarkation, according to a spokesperson for Norwegian Cruise Lines.
“In addition to requiring that 100% of guests and crew are fully vaccinated, per the Company’s comprehensive health and safety protocols, we have implemented quarantine, isolation and contact tracing procedures for identified cases,” the spokesperson told ABC News in a statement Sunday. “Any guests who have tested positive for COVID-19 will travel by personal vehicle to their personal residence or self-isolate in accommodations provided by the Company according to CDC guidelines.”
All of the identified cases on board were asymptomatic, according to the spokesperson.
“We take this matter extremely seriously and will continue to work closely with the CDC, the office of Governor John Bel Edwards, the Louisiana Department of Health as well as the city and port of New Orleans,” the spokesperson added.
