‘Cruise To Nowhere’ Comes To Screeching Halt After Elderly Passenger Tests Positive For Covid-19

Topline

An 83-year-old man on board a Royal Caribbean cruise in Singapore, one of the only countries operating a cruise program around the world amid the coronavirus crisis, has tested positive for Covid-19, in the latest blow to the cruise industry that became an early flashpoint in the pandemic.

Key Facts

Big Number

40%. That’s how much Royal Caribbean’s stock is up over the last month, following news of high efficacy among Covid-19 vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, while Carnival Cruises, another of the world’s biggest cruise lines, has seen its stock soar 70% since November.

Key Background

The cruise industry was one of the first to be severely hampered and eventually ground to a halt by the pandemic, after a string of notable outbreaks and scares onboard during the earlier phases of the virus. This includes the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked for four weeks in February at Japan’s Yokohama port near Tokyo. With a total 3,700 passengers on board, some 22% were infected (around 700 people) with Covid-19, with most cases asymptomatic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 14 people died. At that point, the outbreak was the largest cluster of coronavirus cases outside China. But while cruise ships, which are prone to the easy spread of infection, became a central target in authorities seeking to stop the early spread of the virus (several cruise ships, including Holland America Line’s MS Westerdam, were turned away from ports over scares of cases onboard), cruises around the world kept going for months into the pandemic, Bloomberg data shows, while in April, the CDC issued a No Sail Order for all cruise ships until October, as cases in the U.S. began a steep rise.

Tangent

In November, the first cruise to hit the Caribbean since the pandemic began saw five passengers test positive for Covid-19 onboard the Norwegian-registered SeaDream 1, leading owner SeaDream Yacht Club to cancel the rest of its 2020 cruises. That outbreak, along with the cases in Singapore, highlights the limitations that the pandemic still places on the battered cruise industry keen to get back onto the seas.

Further Reading

Cruise cut short as passenger tests positive for COVID-19 (AP)

Royal Caribbean cruise passengers waiting to disembark after ship returns to Singapore with Covid-19 case (Singapore Straits Times)

When Will Each Cruise Line Resume Sailings Again? (Cruise Hive)

At Least Five Passengers Have Reportedly Tested Positive For Coronavirus On First Caribbean Cruise Since March (Forbes)

Full coverage and live updates on the Coronavirus