Top headline: News Star
Photo: Cruise Mapper
Bottom headline: Cruise Law News
Unlike the United States, which no longer makes the number of people infected with COVID-19 on cruise ships publicly available (the CDC stopped such public disclose in July of this year), the state of New South Wales (NSW) in Australia requires cruise ships which arrive in its waters with guests and crew members infected with the virus to disclose some relevant health data to the public. [emphasis added]
The Australian NSW government’s travel website list, under the title “Update on cruise vessel COVID-19 status,” the “tiers” and “risk levels” of cruise ships. The NSW’s “Advice for the Cruise Industry” provides COVID-19 risk mitigation measures specific to NSW for all cruise vessels intending to enter or leave a NSW port.
Cruise ships are obligated to fill out and send a standard reporting template for acute respiratory infections (as well as gastrointestinal infections) via email to the NSW Health Department on the identification of a person(s) who has tested positive to COVID-19 on board the vessel.
Top headline: News Star
Photo: Carnival
Bottom headline: UNSW Sydney
Cruise ships carrying passengers with COVID are back in the news. The Coral Princess, with an unconfirmed number of people testing positive on board, is set to dock at Fremantle, Western Australia. The Quantum of The Seas, with passengers reportedly testing positive, is heading for Brisbane. There have been similar situations at other ports in New Zealand and the Pacific.
But this isn’t 2020. The cruise ship industry and health authorities have learned much from large outbreaks linked to the Ruby Princess and Diamond Princess cruise ships early in the pandemic. [emphasis added]
Yet, there’s even more we can do to limit the impact of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) spreading from cruise ships to communities on land.
10/29/2022 update starts here
Top headline: News Star
Bottom headline and photo: Cruise Law News, 10/27/2022
The Weekend Australian estimated last Monday that there were currently 100 confirmed cases of Covid-19 on-board the Coral Princess, based on conversations with WA Health. As of yesterday, Ms. Fitzgerald said “I don’t have an exact number, but over 90 per cent of people on board have returned negative tests in the last few days.” Given the fact that there are around 2,000 guests and 900 crew members on the ship, this literally means that the remaining 10% tested positive for COVID-19. This results in 200 infected guests and 90 infected crew members (if Ms. Fitzgerald included crew members as “people on board”).
10/28/2022 update starts here
Top headline: News Star
Bottom headline and photo: Cruise Law News
Cruise ships are returning to Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti amidst reports that four cruise ships (two operated by Princess Cruises and two by Royal Caribbean) are rife with COVID-19. Three of the ships have one hundred or more COVID-19 infected guests on each ship. Royal Caribbean has one ship heading to Australia with reports of around 400 infected passengers. [emphasis added]
10/25/2022 update starts here
Top headline: News Star
Bottom headline and photo: RNZ
Ovation of the Seas sailed in to Napier on Monday from Tahiti.
It went on to Wellington, arriving on Tuesday morning, and from there will go to Picton, then Sydney.
The cruise liner carries almost 5000 passengers and 1300 crew.
In a statement, National Public Health Service medical officer of health in Hawke's Bay Bridget Wilson said authorities had been told about the Covid-19 cases and were confident requirements were being followed.
10/24/2022 update starts here
Top headline: News Star
Photo: Carnival
Bottom headline: Perth Now
About 1900 people on board a cruise ship off the coast of Western Australia could be left stranded for days after a COVID-19 outbreak.
Almost 2000 passengers could be forced to isolate for up to five days on-board the first large cruise ship to enter WA waters since the new cruise protocols came into effect, following the height of the pandemic.
The Coral Princess departed Sydney on October 11 and docked in Broome on Monday morning.
It is understood there are up to 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19 on the ship.
10/6/2022 update starts here
Top headline: News Star
Photo: Alaska Cruises
Bottom headline: Afar
After bumping back the cruise a few more times (Things will look better in the spring! Maybe next fall! Maybe next year!), we finally decided we were going to set sail in August 2022—infection rates were dropping and we were all vaccinated and boosted. Worryingly, the CDC stopped monitoring COVID-19 outbreaks on cruise ships just a month before our excursion, a move that allowed cruise lines to set their own policies of how they would handle cases aboard their vessels. Prior to that, there were more exacting requirements. Passengers and crew were previously required to be up-to-date on vaccines (or show proof of a negative COVID-19 test) before embarkation, and there were also stringent plans outlined for ships to follow in response to any cases that might occur onboard. [emphasis added]
However, I was (perhaps naively) feeling pretty good—I’d gotten the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, two doses of the Moderna vaccine, and a booster. I also habitually wore a mask in public places and hadn’t gotten sick yet. What could go wrong?
Three days into our seven-night Alaskan cruise, which began in Seattle and sailed up to Juneau with several stops on the way, things were going according to plan—we’d left the port of Seattle, tramped around Sitka National Historical Park, and rode the White Pass Railroad in Skagway. But on the fourth day, I awoke with the dreaded dry cough and the chills. The at-home rapid tests that I’d brought with me confirmed what I suspected: I had COVID-19. After a quick visit to the ship’s infirmary, I soon found myself in a new quarantine room—away from my family, who all tested negative—where I would remain for the rest of the cruise until all other passengers had disembarked from the vessel.
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