With Covid-19 making headlines and news updating on the hour, everyone who loves to travel is taking a pause and staying home. In order to flatten the curve, governments have advised everyone to work from home and only go out for necessities such as food, but people are in various stages of lockdown or quarantine based on where they live. While we're all in this health crisis together, individual cases vary and we have to listen to the recommendations of the government and the officials where we live.
One type of travel that has been affected very seriously by Covid-19 is the cruise ship industry. Read on to find out about the cruise line that is ignoring the Covid-19 and letting the U.S. down, along with the cruise ships that are stuck and what you need to know about the spread of the virus on cruise ships.
The MSC Meraviglia Went To Miami
According to a Business Insider story from March 15th, the MSC Meraviglia went to Miami even though people are stopping travel because of Covid-19. It left Miami as it was supposed to and no one had testing or screenings for the coronavirus. People find this surprising as there was someone on the ship who had the virus. There are over 3,800 people on this ship.
This cruise ship definitely shouldn't have left as they had planned to, especially as people are taking necessary and important measures to slow the virus.
These Cruise Ships Are Stuck
There are some cruise ships that are stuck and aren't able to follow their original plan. It seems like this is because they didn't follow the guidelines surrounding COVID-19 since things have escalated quickly in the past week and travel restrictions weren't so obvious just seven days ago. According to a CTV News story from March 7th, cruise ships had made the decision not to let people off the boats but quarantining everyone wasn't the best thing to do. It's very easy for the virus to spread on a cruise ship due to "close quarters" and also the way that the ventilation is. It seems like if cruise ships had acted earlier, perhaps people would have made it home or off the boats. Now they're not sure which ports will say yes to them letting people off.
According to CNN, one cruise ship that is stuck is the Pacific Princess. On March 3rd, it stopped in Australia, but it wasn't able to go to Phuket, Singapore, Bali, or Sri Lanka since then. Princess Cruises said on March 12th that it would be stopping service, as many cruise lines are responding to Covid-19 and understand that new ships can't set sail.
Another stuck ship is the Norwegian Jewel. A news report from Sunday, March 15th said it was in the South Pacific Ocean and it was supposed to let passengers off in Papeete, French Polynesia but wasn't able to.
What You Need To Know About Coronavirus And Cruise Ships
The cruise ship industry definitely needs to take Covid-19 seriously as there have been many cases of people on the ships who have it. We can probably recall that, just a few weeks ago, we were reading the news and seeing that cruises were being hit very hard. As Business Insider explains, "The Diamond Princess registered nearly 700 coronavirus cases. The Grand Princess docked in Oakland last week, with crew members staying aboard in isolation while many passengers will spend 14 days in at US military bases for a quarantine period."
According to Bloomberg, the reason why there are over 700 cases on the Diamond Princess is that a staff member working in food service got the virus on February 2nd. The publication explains "such employees accounted for three-quarters of early laboratory-confirmed cases among staff." And then crew members and passengers started to get it, too.
The Miami Herald says there has been a Level 3 warning by The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to stop going on cruises. The CDC officially said, “Widespread ongoing spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has been reported in some countries. Cruise passengers are at increased risk of the person-to-person spread of infectious diseases, including COVID-19, and outbreaks of COVID-19 have been reported on several cruise ships.”
The Covid-19 outbreak is very scary, and since the cruise ship industry has been affected, it's important to keep up to date with what ships have been doing in response. With one ship going to Miami as planned and others stuck in the ocean, we'll keep reading the news to see how this tough travel situation develops.