94 ships are under a “yellow” alert because in the last 7 days at least 0.10% of passengers presented contagion of covid-19 or symptoms.
All cruise ships that are operating in the United States with passengers are under investigation by health authorities after report contagion of covid-19 in the last week due to the rebound in the pandemic due to the omicron strain.
According to the updated report of the pandemic published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, in English), at least 94 cruises They are until this Thursday under investigation.
Last Thursday the CDC raised its cruise travel advisory to the highest level and urged avoiding these ships, including vaccinated people.
They asked travelers who have a higher risk of contracting serious illnesses from COVID-19 to avoid traveling on cruise ships, including river ones, around the world, “Regardless of vaccination status.”
The 94 ships are under a “yellow” alert from the CDC because in the last 7 days at least 0.10% of the passengers presented contagion of covid-19 or symptoms of the virus (for example, if out of 6,500 passengers on board there are at least 7 such cases).
This percentage includes passenger cases that occur within 5 days of disembarkation and reported to the CDC by state or local health departments.
For its part, the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), which represents 90% of the companies with oceanic cruises, described as “disconcerting” CDC’s decision to increase the cruise travel alert level.
He noted that the cases identified on cruise ships constitute “a very small minority of the total population on board, much less than on land, and most of those cases are asymptomatic or mild in nature, representing little or no burden on medical resources. on board or on land ”.
“No environment can be immune to this virus”, CLIA specified in a statement.
He added that cruise ships provide “one of the highest levels of demonstrated mitigation against the virus.”
According to the CDC, the virus “It spreads easily between people who are in confined spaces on board ships, and the chance of contracting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high, even if you are fully vaccinated and have received a booster dose of the vaccine. “
Shipping companies such as Norwegian have been forced to cancel their itineraries due to the rebound in the pandemic due to the highly contagious omicrom variant.
The Miami-based company announced on Wednesday the cancellation and modification of almost a dozen itineraries scheduled until next April. (I)
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