Wendy Zuckerman

But back to Mark.

In the early days of that cruise, Mark never thought this virus would become something he'd have to worry about.

When him and his wife boarded the ship towards the end of January, there was news of the outbreak in Wuhan.

But Mark was like, whatever.

So then take me to the moment where it then starts to, karma starts to bite.

Mark and his wife, Geri, found this out the night before they were supposed to leave the cruise, which meant an extra day on the ship so that the Japanese government could see if anyone else was sick.

And to the couple, at first, this seemed like kind of a bonus.

Everyone was told to stay in their rooms.

No more big group meals, no more gym.

And the Japanese government started doing tests of people aboard, including Mark and Jerry.

And when their test results came back, it turned out that Jerry was actually positive, but Mark's test was negative, which seemed a bit odd to him.

We didn't even know what social distancing was back then.

Because Geri tested positive, she was taken to a quarantine facility back on land.

She was feeling kind of crummy, but her symptoms never became serious.

Mark, though, as someone who tested negative, he couldn't go with her.

He stayed on the ship.

A day later, the U.S.

government arranged for the U.S.

citizens and residents stuck on board to fly back to the States.

And this whole evacuation was kind of a mess.