The Port of Oakland and Oakland International Airport will remain open during a shelter-in-place order enacted throughout the Bay Area to slow the spread of novel coronavirus, the agencies announced Monday.
The shelter-in-place order will be in effect until April 7, according to health officials from San Francisco, Alameda, Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. The Port of Oakland and the airport are considered essential services, and will remain open, along with BART, hospitals, pharmacies and grocery stores.
The Grand Princess cruise ship, which was carrying quarantined passengers with coronavirus, docked at the Port of Oakland on March 9. The ship has since moved to San Francisco and the Oakland port said none of its employees, customers or business partners have tested positive for coronavirus.
The Port of Oakland oversees Oakland International Airport, and said it is continuing an "accelerated sanitization regimen" along with introducing social distancing policies at all facilities. Both the port and the airport are continuing daily unloading and loading, and regular schedules of inbound and outbound flights.
"The airport does not have international service to locations where there has been a pronounced spread of the coronavirus," Mike Zampa, Port of Oakland spokesman said.
The Oakland airport is the third-busiest airport in the state serving about 14 million passengers a year, while the port processes about 2.5 million cargo containers annually. Updated numbers will be released in the next few months, but operations are currently continuing as normal.
"Our operations are critical to the health, safety, infrastructure and economy of our region," Port of Oakland Executive Director Danny Wan said in a news release. "We will continue to function as a vital gateway for global trade and transportation while doing everything possible to protect our employees, customers and business partners."
