More than a month after Royal Caribbean did a test voyage to simulate how the line would handle passengers if they tested positive for COVID-19, the cruise line this week faced the real thing: Six guests aboard the Adventure of the Seas ship tested positive, the company confirmed Friday.
Four of the guests, who are not traveling together, are vaccinated. Of these adult passengers, three are asymptomatic and one has mild symptoms. The remaining two passengers, traveling together, are unvaccinated children and are not presenting symptoms.
In an email, Royal Caribbean International wrote that the guests were quarantined and close contacts were traced. So far, they all tested negative. Each guest and travel companions disembarked in Freeport, The Bahamas.
The company confirmed that in order to travel on the Adventure, which departed Nassau on July 24, people 16 and older must have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and had to test negative before boarding. Children under 12 who aren't eligible for vaccines also had to test negative. All of the staff are fully vaccinated.
Five weeks ago, Royal Caribbean did a test voyage to go over the steps it would take in the event of COVID-positive guests like the ones on the Adventure. In the early morning of June 22, 2021, roughly 650 "passengers" on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas ship disembarked at PortMiami after a trip to a private island in the Bahamas. The passengers weren't actually tourists, but staff members who volunteered to help test Royal Caribbean's measures to control the spread of COVID-19.
"It gave me chills, said Elisa Shen, one of the volunteers and the associate vice president of onboard revenue. "You feel like the world got smaller during the pandemic, and this really felt like we're really accessing this freedom again to travel, experience and just enjoy life.
"We’ve worked so hard on so many protocols, that I really wanted to get out there and test out how does it actually pan out," Shen said.
Some of the measures in place to control transmitting the disease include physical distancing, COVID-19 testing when boarding the ship and at the end of the trip, doing contact tracing in the event of a positive coronavirus case, having a medical facility on board, as well as steps to isolate and even disembark a COVID-19 positive guest if necessary.
Hernan Zini, the ship's captain, said the trip, although a simulation, raised morale among staff. "Our crew is over the moon," he told WLRN at PortMiami, after the trip finished. "Our crew is always great, but they are in adrenaline right now."
For 15 months, cruises hadn't left Florida's ports — since March 2020, after dangerous outbreaks on ships. At that time, ships with outbreaks had to negotiate to dock in ports. In late March, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis did not want Holland America Line’s Zaandam cruise ship to dock in the state because it had passengers who had died onboard and others who had tested positive for COVID-19 after being turned away from Chile.
Then in October 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued its conditional sailing order, which laid out phased steps for cruise companies to follow in order to resume voyages with paid passengers again.
One option was to set sail with a simulated voyage, as Royal Caribbean did in June. Another option was to have nearly all staff and guests show proof of vaccination against COVID-19.
In April, Florida's state government sued the CDC over its sailing order, or regulations. The state argued that the CDC was overreaching and burdening the ailing cruise industry because these simulated voyages cost too much. Florida also argued that forced vaccinations discriminate against children younger than 12, because they don’t yet qualify for any COVID-19 vaccines.
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday, based in Tampa, ruled in favor of Florida. In his ruling, by July 18, the CDC rules would become recommendations. The CDC appealed.
Last week, things changed again. A panel of judges at a higher federal court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, decided that the CDC regulations could remain in effect while the legal challenges moved forward. Just a few days later, however, by last Friday, they reversed course and the CDC rules went back to being suggestions.
"I’m glad to see the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reverse its prior decision and free the cruise lines from unlawful CDC mandates, which effectively mothballed the industry for more than a year," DeSantis said. He's also added in the past that these rules affect Florida's economy, which critics disagree with.
No American cruise line, however, has said it wants to sail with unvaccinated crew or passengers.
In Key West, some are pointing to an increase in sales taxes and airport numbers compared to 2019. Locals tell WLRN bars are very busy on Duval Street, even though July is usually a slow month for tourism there.
"The economy down here is completely booming," said Arlo Haskell, treasurer of the Committee for Safer, CleanerShips in Key West, which has one of the busiest ports in the state. "We have not suffered any economic harm from the absence of cruise ships."
Haskell and his group were supportive of the CDC order, which required that port and local health authorities ensure cruise lines had the infrastructure in place to manage an outbreak of COVID-19 on their ships to include healthcare capacity and housing to isolate infected people and quarantine those who are exposed. Key West could limit the volume of cruise tourism.
"Here in Key West we have an extremely limited medical infrastructure," Haskell said. "As a starting point we have fewer hospital beds than the state average, we're about four hours from the nearest mainland hospital" and, he added, a large volume of ship visitors.
On the mainland, though, Vicky Garcia points to the financial losses that come with a stalled cruise industry.
"Aside from our business as travel agents, it's the florists that deliver flowers to the ships," said Garcia, the CEO and co-owner of Cruise Planners in Coral Springs. "It's the Uber drivers, the Lyft drivers, the taxi drivers, it’s the food purveyors, it's the guys who load luggage on the ships."
She wants people to think of cruising as not any more dangerous than other means of travel.
Still, Garcia said, her customers are booking cruises on lines that require vaccinations "like crazy."
A new Florida law that went into effect on July 1, 2021, prevents companies from requiring customers to show proof of vaccination against COVID-19.
Now, Florida has asked a federal judge to reject arguments made by Norwegian Cruise Line that a state ban on the vaccine passports is unconstitutional. Norwegian made a request for a preliminary injunction. Florida argues it exercised its “sovereign power” in banning vaccine passports. A hearing is scheduled for next week. The cruise line is slated to resume sailing out of Florida on Aug. 15.
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