The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday increased its travel warning for cruise ships to the highest level and said they should be avoided, regardless of vaccination status.
“Even fully vaccinated travelers may be at risk for getting and spreading COVID-19 variants,” the CDC said in a midday bulletin.
The CDC said the coronavirus “spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships, and the chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is very high.”
“Since the identification of the Omicron variant, there has been an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases among cruise passengers and crew reported to CDC. Additionally, there has been an increase in the number of cruise ships meeting the COVID-19 case threshold for CDC investigation,” the CDC said. “It is especially important that travelers who are at an increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19 avoid travel on cruise ships, including river cruises, worldwide, regardless of vaccination status.”
The Cruise Lines International Association fired back at the news:
“The decision by the CDC to raise the travel level for cruise is particularly perplexing considering that cases identified on cruise ships consistently make up a very slim minority of the total population onboard — far fewer than on land — and the majority of those cases are asymptomatic or mild in nature, posing little to no burden on medical resources onboard or onshore,” CLIA said in a statement.
The association said that “cruise ships offer a highly controlled environment with science-backed measures, known testing and vaccination levels far above other venues or modes of transportation and travel, and significantly lower incidence rates than land.”
Cruise ships operating in U.S. waters reported about 5,000 Covid cases to the CDC between December 15 – 29.
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