Editor’s note: This is the third story following eight local travelers who were quarantined when passengers on their cruise ship fell ill with coronavirus. We will continue to follow this story in the days ahead.
Charlie Currier of Pembroke, whose admission to a hospital at a military base in San Diego delayed a trip home with seven other area travelers, has been released and is now back with his wife, Rose, still far from home.
Charlie Currier was tested for the coronavirus, but the results had not been announced by press time, and it was unclear when the two couples might come after a nightmare that began last month aboard the Grand Princess ocean liner. Rose has been tested as well, but she also has not been told the results. They are staying at an undisclosed location, reserved for people who have already tested positive, Charlie wrote in an email.
Also stuck out there are Dave and Judy Lewis of Concord, while two other couples – Bill and Marcia Krueger of Concord and Frank and Deb Keane of Allenstown – landed in Manchester late Tuesday night and are now quarantined at home.
For the Kruegers and Keanes, things are settling down. Slowly.
“Life is returning to normal after eight hours of being home,” Keane said in an email. “Friends from Bow picked up milk, bread, sandwich meat and cheese for us, so that when we arrived home on Tuesday night we had some food.
“Our neighbor called Wednesday morning and asked if she could do anything, so Deb told her we need some more of the basics. Deb gave her a shopping list and she went to Shaw’s and picked up every item.
“As far as the items that are flying off the shelf, Deb was a good girl scout and we have a freezer full of beef, chicken, pork and lots of seafood. That vacuum packing machine was a good purchase after all. We always bought paper towels, toilet paper and tissues in bulk and, Deb stocked up in the beginning of February.”
As for the two lucky couples, they waited on a bus Tuesday, ready to go home with about a dozen New Yorkers and Massachusetts residents. Because of a political snafu, though, these people were taken off the plane, with the engines roaring, yet the Keanes and the Kruegers made it home.
Their ordeal, arduous, frustrating, provides a snapshot that extends beyond the symptoms and mortality rate everyone is talking about. The other hot topic is response. Medical, government and state officials have been slow to get on the same page, and these locals saw it firsthand.
Some are still seeing it.
They described a Spielberg-like sci-fi, with people dressed in those white spacesuits, face shields, white boots, white caps. Keane and the gang knew that was coming following one of the disembarkments. A driver who picked them up did not. “I thought he was going to leave us,” Keane said.
They were quarantined on the Grand Princess. They were herded into a bus, close to one another. They wore masks but were told to remove them to eat.
They got out of the bus at the Oakland airport. They waited forever on the tarmac, then had to use a line of porta potties – only seven out of 15 were operational, Keane said – because the bathroom in the back of the plane was broken. They were flown to a pair of military bases on March 12, jammed together in the lobby to fill out paperwork, quarantined in small rooms.
“The (Center for Disease Control) took us off the ship and then contaminated us again,” Keane said earlier this week. “We were on the cruise ship, confined for seven days with no contact, then the CDC says be six-feet apart, then the federal government crams all 45 on a bus. A total contradiction.”
As for Dave, his email ended in an upbeat manner, happy he had something that has been in short supply lately.
“A steady supply of toilet paper,” he said. “We have not lost our sense of humor.”