There are bunker barges in Fort Lauderdale and sick people don’t eat much.
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Logistics, cool. After bunkers, one of the Navy’s supply ships could rendez vous offshore and one of their choppers could gently lower a half a dozen pallets loaded with enough MREs to get them home.
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Bring it out with the bunker barge. We don’t need to spend that kind of money unless someone feels the need for a show.
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I can think of someone who would relish it and wear a bomber jacket covered with patches for the occasion.
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Must have seen Top Gun one too many times. Maybe he can get a crotch rocket to ride to the podium if you’re going to do it may as well go all the way.
Geez, these bastards have a lot of nerve …
“The operator of a coronavirus-stricken cruise liner has warned that more people could die at sea unless its vessels are allowed to dock, accusing governments of “turning their backs” on thousands of people stranded at sea during the global pandemic.”
Yeah, right. This comes after the ship sailed from the tip of South America, through the Panama Canal, and onward to its originally scheduled destination of Fort Luderdale where it would arrive in time for its next scheduled departure from Lauderdale.
Rather than let anyone off, I suggest Orlando Ashford, president of Holland America Line, be escorted onboard and made to sail off to the ship’s home port of Rotterdam where its flag state can deal with its misbegotten client.
In the time it spent hanging out on the Pacifc side of the canal it could have sailed to the US west coast where its fictitious “headquarters” is. The whole story from HA is bullshit.
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Zaandam is registered in the Netherlands. There are several Dutch Territories in the Caribbean. (Aruba, Curaçao, Sint Maarten, and the Caribbean Netherlands.) Perhaps they should dump their passengers on those beaches. Isn’t that what flag states are for? 
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Our medical workers are risking their lives and working overtime to keep our citizens alive but these arrogant billionaire owners of FOC cruise ships are upset because we won’t jump to the aid of the foreign passengers they loaded on their ships 3 weeks ago, as the epidemic morphed into a pandemic.
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Fact is that it aren’t only foreigners but also American nationals on board those ships. How do you deal with that? Throw them under the bus with the rest of the riff-raff?
The relative of one group of US citizens on board told that she found DeSantis’ comments “unbelievable,” and took issue with his use of the word “dumped” in particular.
The owners are responsible for the safety and well being of the passengers, same as owners have a duty of care towards mariners they employ. The cruise ship lines bears responsibly to get the passengers off the ships and either home or under care.
Obviously this can’t be done without the cooperation of shore-side authorities but it should be done and cruise ship owners should be forced to bear the costs.
To punish the passengers for the sins of the owners makes no sense.
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Zaandam cruise ship still has no guaranteed port as Trump, Florida officials discuss plans
Holland America’s cruise ship Zaandam. (Luis Acosta)
On Tuesday, authorities in Broward County, Fla., where a cruise ship with four dead and two in dire need of medical attention hopes to dock this week, said a plan presented by owner Carnival Corp. does not yet address all their concerns. But county commissioners said they hoped to take action on an updated plan soon, and several said they wanted to allow the ship to offload its passengers at Port Everglades so they could be sent home.
A representative for the U.S. Coast Guard said Holland America Line’s Zaandam and an accompanying ship, Rotterdam, would not be allowed to enter U.S. waters without submitting “a complete plan for self-support of the medical issues occurring on board the vessels.” (emphasis is mine) A Carnival executive said at the meeting that nine people on Zaandam had tested positive for covid-19.
Coast Guard Capt. Jo-Ann Burdian said a group of local, state and federal agencies needed to reach unanimous consent for the ships to dock.
“If not, I think that’s a question for a broader audience at the national government level,” she said.
President Trump said Tuesday evening that he will be speaking soon with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ® about how to handle the Zaandam.
"There are people that are sick on the ship,” Trump said, adding: “I’m going to do what’s right. Not just for us, but for humanity.”
DeSantis has said that he does not want passengers from the ship to disembark in Florida. His office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but during a news conference earlier Tuesday, he said he had asked the Trump administration to get supplies to the ship.
“Just to drop people off at the place where we’re having the highest number of cases right now just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” he said.
You missed the last part of the statement by Mr. DeSantis:
I presume that “foreigners” don’t count for much in the US, but you should remember that when you are abroad YOU are the “foreigners” .
If a foreign country dismissed a shipload of Americans as “worthless foreigners that don’t deserve any consideration”, there would be an uproar in the US. (Nuke them, or “send in the Marines” comes to mind)
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What he meant to say was probably “bloody foreigners”, more than 14 million of that species visisited Florida this year.
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I like DeckApe’s suggestion, Aruba or Curaçao. Quarantine, test and repatriate.
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I don’t know him, but I would bet heavily that he didn’t mean, “Bloody foreigners.” Wouldn’t even think it.
“Damn foreigners” or “F$ckin’ foreigners”? Yeah 
The estimated 2020 population of Aruba is 106,766 and of Curaçao 164,093 people.
The Sint Elisabeth Hospital in Curaçao (444 km²), with 539 beds, is the main and largest of the islands’ hospitals. Hardly a place to dump thousands of passengers, but be my guest.
Those folks on the ships made a bad decision to book berths knowing/or not this bug was growing. Hindsight is 20-20. The humanitarian thing to do is get them to safety, and most cost to be burdened by the cruise ships company’s pocketbook. Most cruiser folks are just like a face of the population of Florida. Florida has enjoyed what few benefits these FOC outfits offer more than any state. They also were one of the last to act responsibly. Wouldn’t be surprised at all if some of our citizens on board are elderly, and perhaps from Florida. To “Dump” them in in some of the flag states they register in would be devastating worse than a hurricane could ever do. Can’t imagine the idea of getting treatment in a small, already overcrowded hospital in bumfuck wherever. Those folks onboard and the folks who live and work in Florida are terrified because now it’s wake up time.
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The sick wouldn’t have to get treated there. The Dutch ship could tie up in a Dutch country. The sick would disembark to waiting planes chartered at the cruise line’s expense to return them to the Netherlands for further treatment. The healthy would then disembark in an orderly manner to be repatriated by more cruise line chartered planes.
In the case of Americans the healthy could be flown to somewhere with a low infection rate (like South Dakota) where the folks would quarantine at facilities provided for at the cruise line’s expense.
Safe. Responsible. Grossly expensive for the cruise line. So of course they’d rather do a pump and dump into Florida’s waters and get cleaned up for the summer season.
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Do not forget for one moment that Carnival/Holland America intentionally bypassed the entire west coast in order to reposition that ship in Fort Lauderdale for its scheduled April 7th cruise arrival. Keeping those passengers onboard was a commercial decision to literally dump those people where they would have no contractual responsibility for them and - just in case the virus problem ceased to exist - they would be ready for the next cruise.
There is a great airport in the Dutch island of Sint Maarten with tender docks immediately across the street from the terminal.
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I’m sure a “Fleet” of waiting planes on the tarmac are there with open arms. Similar dilemma