Two passengers on post-Covid cruise test positive for coronavirus during voyage in the Caribbean 

Two passengers on the first ‘fully-vaccinated’ cruise from the US have tested positive for coronavirus during the Caribbean voyage.

Cruise operator Royal Caribbean said on Thursday that two guests on its Celebrity Millennium ship had tested positive but are asymptomatic and currently in isolation.

The guests, who were sharing a room, are being monitored by the company’s medical team, the cruise operator said. 

They tested positive during end-of-cruise testing, carried out three days before returning to the US.

Royal Caribbean added that it was conducting contact tracing and expediting testing for all close contacts of the unnamed individuals.

All passengers were required to show proof of vaccination before boarding the cruise in addition to a negative test taken within 72 hours before departure from the island of St. Maarten on Saturday. 

Two passengers on the first ‘fully-vaccinated’ cruise from the US have tested positive for coronavirus during the Caribbean voyage. Cruise operator Royal Caribbean said on Thursday that two guests on its Celebrity Millennium ship (pictured) had tested positive but are asymptomatic and currently in isolation [File photo]

The ship is now docked in Curaço and will return to St. Maarten on Saturday to disembark.     

Celebrity Millennium was one of the first cruises in North America to restart sailing last week, after more than a year of halted operations due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Around 600 guests were welcomed on board the week-long voyage – a fraction of the ship’s 2,218 capacity.

Royal Caribbean started sailing this month after meeting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) comprehensive guidelines that included a fully vaccinated crew and requirements for everyone over 16 to present proof of vaccination against Covid-19.

Cruise operators are among the last to return to their pre-pandemic operations as the CDC laid out strict guidance earlier this year for the cruise industry for resuming trips, after some ships became hotbeds for the virus last year. 

Ocean voyages were suspended in March last year as the pandemic cut a devastating path around the world, with hubs like Florida losing an estimated $5.6 billion. 

News of the cases came as US-based cruise lines are chafing to resume voyages from Florida ports in July as the pandemic wanes – but for vaccinated passengers only – yet the state and its governor won’t let them demand proof of inoculation.

So far, neither side has blinked, even as two guests on one of the first cruise ships to sail from North America since the Covid pandemic tested positive on Thursday.

Florida ‘is the cruise capital of the world,’ with billions of dollars of revenue and thousands of jobs at stake, said Doug Parker, editor of the Cruise Radio website.

‘It would be a big blow if they couldn’t come to terms.’

If neither side gives in, Parker said, cruise ships ‘would have to start sailing out of other ports that would accept them… because these ships are trying to do the right thing.’

The CDC currently requires that more than 95 percent of passengers and crew be vaccinated in order for cruise lines to bypass a requirement for trial voyages.  

The guests, who were sharing a room, are being monitored by the company’s medical team, the cruise operator said. They tested positive during end-of-cruise testing, carried out three days before returning to the US [File photo]

The chief obstacle now for cruises departing from Florida comes from Republican Governor Ron DeSantis, who made his tourism-dependent state one of the first to drop its pandemic restrictions.

Last month he signed into law a bill barring businesses from demanding vaccination ‘passports,’ stopping them from requiring that employees provide proof of vaccination – and threatening fines for noncompliance that could amount, for cruise lines, to $5,000 per passenger.

The measure takes effect July 1, just when cruise lines hope to resume operations after a year in which Covid played havoc with their industry.

‘While the governor, on the one hand, wants to see jobs back and tourism back… (he) is kind of his worst enemy, because he’s also saying, you can’t ask for that same proof,’ Parker said.

The governor’s terse response: ‘Our state policy is our state policy.’

To DeSantis’s critics, his is a political decision aimed at winning the votes of Donald Trump sympathizers – many of them vaccine skeptics – ahead of a possible re-election campaign in 2022. 

With the world’s three biggest cruise lines all based in Miami, the coming months offer a calendar of confusing and shifting health requirements, with conflict a near-certainty.

Carnival Cruise Line will require vaccination on cruises leaving from Texas – another Republican-led state that has been quick to drop Covid curbs – but Carnival has provided no detailed information on a cruise set to leave Miami on July 4.

This Monday, Norwegian Cruise Line – which has threatened to abandon Florida ports altogether – directly defied the governor by saying it would demand proof of vaccination on all its cruises.

‘We are currently in communication with his (DeSantis’s) staff and legal counsel to ensure that we can offer the safest cruise experience for our passengers departing from the cruise capital of the world,’ the company’s CEO, Frank Del Rio, said.

The third big cruise line, the Royal Caribbean Group, meantime reversed itself.

Having initially announced that it would demand proof of vaccination, it said Friday that passengers and crew were only ‘strongly recommended’ to get the vaccine, and that anyone unvaccinated would face ‘other protocols.’

News of the cases came as US-based cruise lines are chafing to resume voyages from Florida ports in July as the pandemic wanes – but for vaccinated passengers only – yet the state and its governor won’t let them demand proof of inoculation. Pictured: Cruise ships in Miami [File photo]

Celebrity Cruises (part of Royal Caribbean) will launch the first trip from Florida, sailing out of Fort Lauderdale on June 26. A ‘test’ cruise six days earlier will depart from Miami.

‘It’s confusing,’ Jim Walker, a maritime lawyer, told AFP. His Cruise Law News blog last year provided daily updates on the distress of those on cruise ships stranded at sea by the pandemic.

Now, he said, there’s ‘different companies trying to solve a problem differently.’ 

‘The impression that the public have is that the cruise line is not taking appropriate steps to send out a message that their ships are safe,’ said Walker, pointing to a survey by CruiseCritic.com that found that 80 percent of potential passengers would prefer to travel on ships that demand vaccination proof.

He also pointed out that ships making Caribbean port stops could spread Covid to islands lacking the vaccine access enjoyed by the US – ‘although quite frankly,’ he added, ‘very few cruise lines seem to express concern about that potential.’

And cruise lovers, Walker continued, ‘don’t really seem to care if they infect people in the Bahamas or throughout the Caribbean.’

‘It’s so reckless and dangerous and irresponsible,’ he said.

The cruise industry is hugely important to the Florida economy, generating yearly revenues of $9 billion and providing jobs for 160,000 people, according to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

Since ocean voyages were suspended in March last year as the pandemic cut a devastating path around the world, Florida has lost an estimated $5.6 billion.

Both sides in the current standoff, Parker said, ‘have a lot to lose.’