CDC advises vaccinated and unvaccinated travellers to avoid cruise ships

Travellers, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, have been advised by the CDC to avoid going on cruises

A bulletin on Thursday, December 30, issued by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), urged potential travellers to avoid going on cruise ships. This applied to both vaccinated and unvaccinated they stipulated.

“Even fully vaccinated travellers may be at risk for getting and spreading Covid-19 variants”, said the CDC advice. Adding, “It is especially important that travellers who are at an increased risk of severe illness from Covid-19 avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide, regardless of vaccination status”.

Due to the recent increase in Covid outbreaks, the health notice level has been raised from Level 3, up to level 4, which the CDC says, “reflects increases in cases onboard cruise ships since the identification of the Omicron variant”.

On the CDC’s color-coded chart, cruise ships currently sit at ‘level yellow’. At this level, it indicates that the agency is conducting investigations into Covid outbreaks aboard ships. According to its website, the entity is either currently, or has finished, probing cases on more than 90 ships.

Today, a statement from the Cruise Lines International Association, said, “the decision by the CDC to raise the travel level for cruises is particularly perplexing considering that cases identified on cruise ships consistently make up a very slim minority of the total population onboard”.

This action by the CDC is a very unwelcome blow to an industry that has only last June got back into operation. After the announcement was issued, major cruise lines including Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd, Royal Caribbean Group, and Carnival Corp, saw their shares drop by between 2 and 3 per cent.

For passengers already on a cruise, the CDC advised them to get tested every three to five days. After disembarking, they should self-test themselves for at least 14 days for any symptoms of coronavirus, as reported by metro.co.uk.

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