A recent study conducted by the Center for Disease Control(CDC) on how the coronavirus pandemic has affected the Cruise industry concluded that 106 cruise ships that entered US waters after March 1 had been carrying COVID-19 patients.
The study states that about one-third of those infected on the cruise ship were passengers, amounting to 850 cases. The remaining two-thirds comprised crewmembers of the ships, as reported by Dailymail.
CDC claimed that Carnival Cruises had a total of 47 ships that were infected with COVID, whereas Carnival had disclosed only 15 of its ships which had been hit by the virus.
Image for Representation Purpose only; Credits: flicker.com/franbanks1
Many other cruise companies have accused the governmental body of overcounting the total number of ships infected, as well as passengers and crew members. This can be explained by the fact that the CDC number includes ‘clinically compatible’ cases that were thought to have been COVID-19, but were not confirmed by a lab test.
Industry experts were quick to say that the $45.6 billion Cruise Industry was one of the hard-hit sectors where companies had to pay heavily to disembark passengers who were already on board the ship when the virus hit.
Also, many companies now face multi-million dollar lawsuits from passengers on COVID-19 hit ships. On top of their woes, is the ongoing crew repatriation crisis. The New York Times, in a recent study, said that there were 68 ships which were still at sea with 21,506 crew members on board. This is just the case for ships inside the US waters.
Reference: dailymail.co.uk
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