San Francisco, Mar 7 (IANS): US Vice President Mike Pence has announced that 21 people on the Grand Princess cruise ship, which has been held off the California coast, have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

A total of 46 people aboard the Grand Princess had been swabbed for a coronavirus test with 24 of them showing "negative" and one "inconclusive", Xinhua news agency quoted Pence as saying at a press briefing.

The 21 positive cases comprise 19 crew members and two passengers.

The cruise ship was linked to the first coronavirus death in California amid possible virus spread aboard.

It was banned from docking at San Francisco, after one of its former passengers died from the virus on Wednesday.

There were more than 3,000 people aboard the ship, according to local media reports.

Pence announced a plan to bring the ship to a non-commercial port and have the infected passengers quarantined at a US military base.

But the 1,100 crew members, he said "we anticipate that they will be quarantined on the ship, (and) they will not need to disembark".

Pence noted that "everyone on the ship" would be tested and they would be "quarantined as necessary".

As of Friday, the US now has 329 confirmed or presumed positive coronavirus cases in 28 states, while the death toll has increased to 15, according to figures by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.