The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating some 86 cruise ships for COVID-19, according to multiple reports.
The Washington Post said in today’s edition that 86 ships in U.S. waters are being looked at. BNN Bloomberg pegged the number of ships under investigation by the CDC at 89.
Several cruise ships were turned away from ports in the Caribbean and Mexico over the past week due to concerns about COVID-19 and the Omicron variant.
The website Axios said affected cruise lines include Disney, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian.
The CDC today lists cruise travel at level three in its travel warning site, which indicates a “high” level of COVID-19.
“CDC recommends that people who are not fully vaccinated avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide,” their website states.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said cruise lines should park their ships in port.
“Our warnings have proved sadly prescient & continuously compelling,” he said on his Twitter feed. “Time for CDC & cruise lines to protect consumers & again pause—docking their ships.
“Cruises are repeating recent history as petri dishes of COVID infection,” Blumenthal said.
The cruise industry was hit extremely hard by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, and cruise lines instituted strict testing, cleaning and social distancing policies. Passengers began returning in droves a few months ago, but the industry was then hit with the Omicron variant.
Carnival spokesperson Roger Frizzell told the Washington Post that Carnival’s safety and health protocols “have proven to be effective time and time again over the past year with our sailings being restarted across each of our brands.”
“Health and safety is the cruise industry’s highest priority,” Bari Golin-Blaugrund, a spokesperson for the Cruise Lines International Association trade group, said in an email to BNN Bloomberg. “In fact, the latest data show that cases have occurred less frequently on cruise ships than on land, with a greater proportion of asymptomatic or mild cases.”
