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Five passengers aboard the first cruise ship to resume navigation in the Caribbean tested positive for the coronavirus, according to reports and an interview with a passenger.
SeaDream Yacht Club’s SeaDream 1 captain, Torbjorn Lund, reported positive Covid tests in an announcement to passengers and crew, Sue Bryant, a cruise director for the Sunday Times who is currently on the ship, has said in a telephone interview with CNBC. Gene Sloan, cruise writer for The Points Guy, who is also on the ship, confirmed the announcement.
Bryant said the five people who tested positive appear to be traveling in a group.
SeaDream, a luxury cruise ship based in Oslo, Norway, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The company said in a statement Thursday that it had halted the ship’s voyage to the Caribbean “after guest tests for Covid-19 returned positive results.”
“Immediately after performing the preliminary Covid rapid test on board and receiving the presumed positive results, SeaDream advised local health authorities and initiated its Covid response protocols to protect guests and crew,” the company said. . “The ship’s medical staff tested all crew members and all tests were negative. SeaDream is currently re-examining all guests.”
The company noted that it had successfully cruised to Norway this summer. SeaDream has implemented “even stricter health and safety protocols for our winter season in Barbados,” the company said.
“All guests have been tested twice prior to boarding and we are in the process of retesting guests,” said Andreas Brynestad, Executive Vice President of SeaDream in a statement. “We are working closely with local health and government authorities to resolve this situation as best we can. Our top priority is the health and safety of our crew, guests and the communities we visit.”
Sloan, who is aboard the ship, told NBC’s “Today” show that the company had an “incredibly rigorous system” for trying to keep the virus off the ship and the bubble. This strategy relied largely on repeat testing, Sloan said, which the company hoped “would block Covid at the door, so to speak.”
However, Sloan told Inside Edition that people aboard the ship were not required to wear masks until two days into the voyage.
The ship is currently in the port of Bridgetown in Barbados, according to cruisemapper, which tracks the location of cruise ships and other ships. Bryant, the publisher who is also on the ship, said the tests that led to five positive tests were conducted by health authorities in Barbados. All crew members tested negative, the captain announced, according to Bryant. They are still waiting for test results for all passengers, he said.
The Barbados Port Authority did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The ship currently has 53 passengers on board and 66 crew members, he said. All passengers and “non-essential crew” are currently quarantined in their quarters, he added, while Barbadian authorities conduct further tests.
“We don’t know if we will be able to leave the ship in Barbados. The captain seemed very optimistic,” he said. “We don’t know. We’re just waiting to hear.”
Passengers on the current cruise boarded the ship on Saturday, Bryant said. He added that the ship has remained “in a bubble” ever since, interacting only with others on the ship.
News of a cluster of infections aboard a cruise ship is a major blow to the industry, which is among the hardest-hit sectors of the global economy. Cruise travel has largely halted since March, after some of the first Covid-19 outbreaks occurred on cruise ships, resulting in some deaths.
The Cruise Lines International Association, a commercial group representing SeaDream and other cruise lines, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a navigation ban order in March for cruise operators, stating that “cruise ship travel exacerbates the global spread of Covid-19 …”
Last month, the CDC lifted the sail ban order and replaced it with a “Conditional Navigation Order,” which outlines a step-by-step approach to help cruise lines resume operations in US waters with health protocols such as increased testing and quarantine protocol.
The SeaDream ship has been licensed to sail in United States waters because CDC regulations only apply to ships that have the capacity to carry at least 250 passengers.
Some cruise lines made successful trips to Europe and elsewhere during the pandemic, keeping the virus away from ships. And executives of major publicly traded cruise lines have expressed optimism that with more investment in health and safety, they will be able to successfully resume at least some operations next year.
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