Cruises and COVID-19: CDC updates guidance for high-risk travelers

Table Of Content

• Passengers test positive for COVID on fully-vaxxed Royal Caribbean cruise
• Passenger dies of COVID-19 amid outbreak on Carnival cruise ship
• Is Your Cruise Ship Safe? How To Check Its COVID-19 Status
• CORONAVIRUS - LIVE MAP OF CRUISE SHIPS AFFECTED BY NOW
• ‘90 Day Fiancé’ star Big Ed calls off wedding to Liz without telling her
• Cruise Law News

As the Delta variant has emerged, he’s seen health and safety protocols become even more stringent in terms of requirements for pre-cruise testing, vaccinations, and the use of masks. As the more contagious Delta variant of the virus continues to spread, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued updated guidance on Aug. 20 advising that travelers at increased risk for severe illness avoid going on cruises regardless of vaccination status. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law banning businesses from requiring proof of vaccination, but more than 96% of passengers and all but one crew member aboard the Carnival Vista were fully vaccinated, according to the Belize tourism board. Poole noted that Port Canaveral-based cruise ships historically have sailed at 110% to 115% of their double-occupancy capacities, with three or more people occupying many cabins, typically parents and their children.

Passengers test positive for COVID on fully-vaxxed Royal Caribbean cruise

A 77-year-old woman has died from COVID-19 after testing positive while sailing on a Carnival cruise to Belize, marking the first reported death since cruises restarted in the Caribbean and United States in June. During the current budget year, there will be a total of 66 cruise ship sailings with passengers in a period stretching from July 31 through Sept. 29, according to Port Canaveral Chief Executive Officer John Murray. The port said it lost an estimated $113.6 million in cruise ship and cruise-related parking revenue during the shutdown, which began in March 2020. Pre-pandemic, about 80% of the port's revenue came from various fees it charged cruise ships and from cruise passenger parking. “All guests on Celebrity Millennium were required to show proof of vaccination as well as a negative COVID-19 test within 72 hours before sailing from St. Maarten this past Saturday,” the statement said. Two people on a fully-vaccinated Royal Caribbean cruise ship tested positive for COVID-19, officials said in a statement.

Passenger dies of COVID-19 amid outbreak on Carnival cruise ship

CDC Investigating Illness Outbreak on Luxury Cruise Ship - U.S. News & World Report

CDC Investigating Illness Outbreak on Luxury Cruise Ship.

Posted: Thu, 08 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

” notwithstanding the fact that her symptoms began 4 days into the cruise which was consistent with the incubation period explained by the CDC which can begin as early as 2 days. Seventeen months later today, it is clear that Carnival is refusing to disclose the total number of crew and guests infected with COVID-19 on any particular cruise and is sloughing off direct responses to such inquiries from the media. It is also apparent that guests are disembarking from Carnival ships and quickly testing positive  without follow up by this cruise line.

Is Your Cruise Ship Safe? How To Check Its COVID-19 Status

COVID-19 GUEST PROTOCOLS including “requiring proof of vaccination for the vast majority of guests and regular testing for others. Panorama’s entire 1,400-member crew is fully vaccinated, according to the company’s website. All passengers, regardless of vaccination status, must present a negative COVID-19 test result from within three days of embarkation. Unvaccinated guests must take another test prior to embarkation and a third test 24 hours into the voyage if the cruise is longer than four days.” AXIOS reported last week that Carnival  announced new mask guidelines, which say that all guests are required to wear masks indoors. A number of cruise lines have strengthened COVID-19 regulations on U.S. sailings as the delta variant continues to spread. Princess Cruises, Holland America Line and Carnival Cruise Line added mask requirements in select spaces and testing requirements for all passengers, regardless of vaccination status, earlier this month.

I have also heard from guests on different Carnival cruise ships who tested positive after returning home from cruises who tried to contact Carnival and had to leave a message with sales representatives that they tested positive for COVID-19. Another couple left a tweet to this effect on Twitter and commented that other guests tested positive as well. CDC protocol says at least 95% of passengers and crew must show proof of vaccination to board a cruise ship. COVID-19 outbreaks have been reported on cruise ships in recent months, despite various testing and vaccination requirements among cruise lines. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has banned vaccine passports and challenged the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for cruise ships. The CDC requires ships to have 98 percent of its crew and 95 percent of passengers fully vaccinated.

CDC warns older adults, travelers in COVID high-risk groups not to take cruises, even if they're vaccinated

Over the course of two weeks in late July and early August, 27 people aboard the Carnival Vista cruise ship — including 26 crew members — were diagnosed with COVID-19, according to the report. This was the highest number of positive cases aboard any cruise ship and the first death since sailing restarted in June, the Times reported. On the ship, 99.98% of crew members are vaccinated, and 96.5% of passengers are vaccinated, the tourism board said, noting that all of the people who tested positive are vaccinated. According to the COVID-19 color code database, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that all thirteen Carnival cruise ships operating in U.S. waters, authorized to sail with passengers, had COVID-19 infections in the last seven days.

Court rules Carnival Cruises was negligent during COVID-19 outbreak linked to hundreds of cases - CBS News

Court rules Carnival Cruises was negligent during COVID-19 outbreak linked to hundreds of cases.

Posted: Wed, 25 Oct 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Carnival spokesperson AnneMarie Matthews confirmed the positive cases and additional info in the tourism board's statement to USA TODAY. The ship was at 30% capacity when it took off for a seven-day trip on Sunday from St. Maarten, with stops in Aruba, Barbados and Curacao, reports said. It was the first ship with paying customers to sail from North America since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, reports said. However, Barnette says he would like to see a better breakdown of the number of COVID cases relative to the numbers of passengers/crew on the ships. “When you hear there are X number of cases and you don’t have a point of reference, you don’t know how concerned you should be. For instance, if the prevalence is less than 1%, that is less troubling than 10%,” he says.

The appearance of COVID-19 on the Mardi Gras as cruising returned to Port Canaveral is a sign of just how precarious the restart of cruising can be. Twenty-seven people sailing on Carnival Cruise Line's Carnival Vista ship have tested positive for COVID-19. Of those who tested positive, 26 are crew members and one person is a passenger, according to a news release from the Belize Tourism Board Wednesday. After leaving one Carnival Vista passenger with COVID-19 alone in a sub-standard hospital in Belize and sailing on to the next port (Cozumel), Carnival belatedly claimed that “it was highly unlikely Ms. Tackett contracted the coronavirus aboard the ship .

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However, vaccinated people who have breakthrough infections are much less likely to get severely sick or die. Cruise ship accidents, injuries, crimes, disappearances, fires, and collisions on the high seas involve issues of maritime law. Jim Walker graduated from law school in 1983 and has been handling maritime law cases for the past thirty-five years. He handles a wide variety of cases from serious injuries to the highest profile sexual assault and cruise crime cases. With COVID-19 now appearing on virtually every Carnival ship leaving from the U.S., don’t expect any accurate COVID-19 infection details any time soon from the likes of Carnival. On August 6, Tackett was evacuated and arrived at a hospital in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a statement from her family on a crowdfunding page states.

For example, he is projecting that ships sailing from Port Canaveral will operate at 50% of their double-occupancy capacity from October through December 2021. Then, he is projecting that they will operate at 75% of their double-occupancy capacity from January through September 2022. Carnival said it also has a process in place to randomly test a large percentage of its crew on a rotating basis multiple days per week, even though all are vaccinated. In the Mardi Gras incident, three Carnival Cruise Line passengers had COVID-19 on the inaugural sailing of the ship from Port Canaveral on July 31. Carnival Cruise Line failed to reveal any information regarding the number of infected guests or crew members on this ship. The two passengers are asymptomatic but in isolation while the cruise line conducts contact tracing, the statement said.

In the end, all COVID-era travel entails weighing available information in light of personal health factors and one’s tolerance for risk. The new CDC color code system for cruise ships offers one more metric to help make these tough decisions. A color-coded system developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) can provide helpful information about the COVID-19 status of cruise ships operating or planning to operate in U.S. waters. The outbreak of 27 cases aboard the ship was discovered on the fourth day of an eight-day cruise, shortly before the ship docked in Belize.

"We feel like it's a very conservative approach," Poole told port commissioners on Wednesday, during their first of two budget hearings. He is using estimates of passenger counts that are much lower than the port has historically seen. Poole said he was conservative in his projections for port revenue from cruise operations.

“The amount of safety measures and protocols in place on a cruise is unrivaled in most other businesses,” he says. “The vaccination status of each passenger is known and tracked; each cruise ship has certain medical facilities and procedures for testing and dealing with COVID in place, along with plans to get passengers home if need be. Carnival has updated its vaccination policy so that starting on Saturday, most guests will be required to be vaccinated and must also present negative results of a COVID-19 test taken within three days before boarding a ship. Carnival also implemented a mask mandate on Aug. 7 for all passengers in indoor areas. The Carnival Vista cruise ship sailing out of Galveston, Texas, reported 27 people testing positive over two weeks in late July and early August, the highest number of cases since cruises started sailing again.

Also, beginning Aug. 14, all vaccinated passengers, in addition to unvaccinated passengers, needed to show proof of a negative COVID-19 test prior to embarkation, as the cruise line modified its protocols "to adapt to the changing public health situation." The new guidance applies to older adults, people with certain medical conditions and pregnant and recently pregnant people. Prior to Friday’s announcement, the agency recommended that only people who were not fully vaccinated against COVID-19 avoid cruise ships. Of the 67 ships currently listed and rated as sailing with passengers and crew, crew-only or on simulated voyages, 40 are green with no reports of COVID- onboard; 13 ships are rated orange; 14 are yellow; none are red or gray.

Some cruise lines in recent days have announced new measures designed to keep COVID-19 off their ships. The tests came back as part of routine, end-of-cruise testing, which was offered as a courtesy by the cruise line, since most passengers need to show proof of a negative test in order to return home. Carnival discovered the cases when doing required COVID-19 tests near the end of its cruise. Two of the passengers were children who did not have the COVID-19 vaccine, and the third was a vaccinated parent of one of the children, according to Port Canaveral officials. Contact tracing was completed on the ship, with no additional positive tests, and all who tested positive were isolated.