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When the cruise departed on Saturday from Nassau in the Bahamas, the guests were required to show proof of a negative PCR test. Unvaccinated minors were also required to take another test at check-in. Everyone had tested negative prior to boarding, according to a spokesperson for the company. Royal Caribbean Cruises shares fell about 4% on Friday after six passengers on board its Adventure of the Seas ship tested positive for Covid-19. There are 2,895 guests and 1,441 crew on the ship that sailed from Galveston, Texas, the tourism board said. That includes sailings on eight ships operated by four cruise lines.
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The four of those guests were fully vaccinated and not traveling together. The Motley Fool’s Rich Smith recently highlighted the fact that cruising isn’t enjoyable these days. You don’t have to tell the passengers of the Carnival Vista that. As my InvestorPlace colleague, Larry Ramer, recently wrote, cruise lines may again face no-sail bans due to the surge in cases from the Delta variant. However, it shows what risks are involved in taking a cruise at this point, vaccinated or not.
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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. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading expert on infectious diseases, recently said that he thinks the country will have control over Covid and regain a sense of normalcy by spring 2022. But even then, travel and cruises will likely be high-risk activities.
vaccinated people test positive for Covid on a Carnival cruise ship
A recent story appeared in Jim Walker’s Cruise Law News detailing the death of a 77-year-old woman who took a Carnival cruise with her family, leaving Galveston, Texas on July 31. During the pandemic, the port reduced its staff by 43% — from 268 positions to 153. That was done through a combination of 68 permanent layoffs, 17 unpaid furloughs, and not filling 30 positions that were left vacant because of retirement or employees taking jobs elsewhere. But that's still less than the port's pre-pandemic staffing level.
Then, he is projecting that they will operate at 75% of their double-occupancy capacity from January through September 2022. In all, 14 ships operated by five cruise lines will be based at Port Canaveral either year-round or part of the year. Some cruise lines in recent days have announced new measures designed to keep COVID-19 off their ships.
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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. For example, six passengers on a recent Royal Caribbean International Adventure of the Seas cruise sailing from Nassau, the Bahamas, tested positive for COVID-19. Carnival asks that its passengers wear masks in certain indoor areas. 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." If your heart is set on going on a cruise before then, you should get vaccinated when you're eligible, Malani says.
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According to Cruise Law News, 26 crew and one passenger (Tackett) on the Carnival Vista tested positive for Covid-19. Further, something like 27 cruise ships have reported cases of Covid-19. The publication also has reported that a Carnival chief engineer died of Covid-19 after working for the company for more than 34 years with nary a mention from the company. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) gives cruise ships a color-coded safety status — green, yellow, orange and red — based on reports of cases of Covid or Covid-like illness. The agency also indicates when there are investigations into outbreaks on ships.
Port Canaveral Secretary/Treasurer Robyn Hattaway expressed some frustration during Wednesday's Canaveral Port Authority meeting about how long it was taking for the port to get its ARPA money. Even with the ARPA money, Port Canaveral expects to report losses of $39.48 million during the current budget year. "We can try to do cruises as safely as possible, but we are going to have breakthrough cases," says Ostrosky. You eat and drink indoors at buffet restaurants with large communal tables, attend shows in theaters and touch all kinds of surfaces, from railings to casino games. If an outbreak happens at sea, you're restricted to the boat, which can make the outbreak harder to contain and treat.
While I believe the cruise industry will return to normal at some point, now doesn’t appear to be that time. And even with safety measures in place, cruises come with residual risks that can't be ignored, like unavoidable close quarters and potential for breakthrough infections. Travel of any kind is currently a very high-risk activity, explains Dr. Luis Ostrosky, division chief for infectious diseases at UT Health, part of the University of Texas, Houston. "And we don't have the level of vaccination we need to assure that people are going to survive if they happen to get [Covid]."
He said the port will continue reduced spending levels for promotions, advertising, travel, sponsorships and consultants. Poole said, with cruising resuming, the port will have increases in various other expenses, including for service contracts, utilities and public safety. Additionally, there will be 630 half-day sailings of the Victory 1 gambling ship. The money will help cover its losses stemming from a 16½-month shutdown of the cruise industry locally because of COVID-19. 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.
Then, look for cruises that require vaccination proof and only allow reduced capacity — the lower, the better. While on the cruise, pick activities and excursions that are lower-risk, she says, like always dining outdoors. And of course, board the ship with the understanding that no matter what happens, you're taking a risk. To make cruises genuinely safe, he says, companies would need to require mandatory two-week quarantines for each passenger and crew member, negative Covid tests 24 to 48 hours before boarding and another negative Covid test immediately after boarding.
Three passengers tested positive for COVID-19 at the end of the recent inaugural seven-night sailing from Port Canaveral of Carnival Cruise Line’s newest and largest ship, the Mardi Gras. Cruises are even particularly risky when compared to other types of travel, like driving or flying, because they present more opportunities for prolonged exposure. "Frankly, the risk on a two-hour flight where everyone is masked and airflow is good is [lower] than being on a cruise ship for five days straight," says Dr. Preeti Malani, chief health officer at the University of Michigan. Only one of the positive cases was a passenger; the remaining 26 were crew members. All 27 people were vaccinated and are experiencing mild or no symptoms, the country's tourism board said.
Passengers will be required to have a negative test before they board ships, said CEO Michael Bayley in a Facebook post. Twenty-seven people tested positive for Covid-19 aboard the Carnival Vista cruise ship, which docked in Belize on Wednesday, according to the Belize Tourism Board. The CDC recommends people who go on cruises wear a mask in shared spaces and get tested one to three days before their trip and three to five days after, regardless of vaccination status. Passengers who are not fully vaccinated should also self-quarantine for at least seven days after their cruise ends, according to the CDC's website. 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. Among them, there were cases involving 26 crew members and one passenger on the Carnival Vista on a recent cruise that sailed from Galveston, Texas.
You can check the CDC's website for a ship's Covid status before planning or boarding a cruise. 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. The discovery was among a series of positive COVID-19 tests among passengers and crew of ships operated by Carnival and other cruise lines in recent weeks.
"The CDC’s conditional sail order and our own protocols anticipate the potential for COVID on board, and our procedures are designed to manage and mitigate any situation," Carnival said in a statement on that incident. "The health, safety and well-being of our guests, crew and the destinations we visit is our priority." Carnival discovered the cases when doing required COVID-19 tests near the end of its cruise.
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