Revealed: 6,000 passengers on cruise ships
despite coronavirus crisis
Guardian analysis comes amid growing scrutiny of
industry’s response to outbreak
Erin
McCormick, Patrick Greenfield and Uki Goñi
Thu 9 Apr
2020 11.30 BSTLast modified on Thu 9 Apr 2020 22.00 BST
At least
6,000 passengers remain at sea on cruise liners despite the coronavirus
pandemic, Guardian analysis has found, amid growing scrutiny of the cruise
industry’s reaction to the spread of Covid-19.
Dozens of
fatalities have now been linked to cruise ships, with both passengers and crew
dying while at sea and after disembarking. Yet, according to analysis using the
ship-tracking site CruiseMapper, at least eight ships remain at sea with
passengers – including one vessel on which 128 people have tested positive for
coronavirus.
“Outbreaks
of Covid-19 on cruise ships pose a risk for rapid spread of disease beyond the
voyage,” the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) warned in guidance
prohibiting those disembarking from cruise ships from taking regular commercial
flights. It listed 28 cruises that had reported Covid-19 outbreaks and used US
ports.
Cruise
industry representatives say they were caught “without warning” by the
pandemic. But operators continued to launch cruises as late as mid-March –
after the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic – and
companies have been accused of failing to disclose the scale of ship-born
outbreaks before allowing passengers to disembark.
As far back
as early February, outbreaks were detected on cruise ships. The Diamond
Princess was quarantined in Japan on 4 February after an outbreak onboard which
eventually claimed at least 10 lives.
At least
six ships which had coronavirus outbreaks set sail from the US after the CDC
advised against cruise travel on 8 March – including two that departed after
the WHO’s pandemic declaration.
Around the
world, the Pacific Princess, Queen Mary 2, Arcadia, Astor, Magnifica, Columbus,
Costa Deliziosa and the Greg Mortimer cruise liners all remain at sea.
At least
6,362 passengers are onboard the eight ships, several of which were scheduled
as months-long, round-the-world voyages.
On
Saturday, Australian passengers are due to be repatriated from Uruguay after
disembarking from the Greg Mortimer, an Antarctic cruise ship on which nearly
two-thirds of passengers and crew have been infected with coronavirus.
Eight
people have transferred to intensive care in Montevideo from the vessel which
set sail on the day of the WHO pandemic declaration and has been anchored off
La Plata river since 27 March after cutting the cruise short.
European
and US passengers have been told they cannot disembark until two weeks after
they have tested negative for the disease.
Brian
Meier, 55, a businessman from Chicago, said the worst part of the experience
has been the daily uncertainty regarding their fate. “Our mood goes up and
down, because we are told there’s news coming – but then you wake up the next
morning and there’s no news and by the time it gets dark again there’s still
nothing,” he said via WhatsApp.
There are
currently no reports of Covid-19 on any of the other ships currently at sea.
But the CDC has warned that thousands of passengers who had travelled on 28
cruises since 1 February may have been exposed to coronavirus.
Dr Peter
Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San
Francisco, called on the US government to devise a plan to safely allow
passengers on the remaining ships to disembark.
Having
cruise ships “wandering the world right now” was “completely irresponsible”, he
said.
The crisis
has increased concerns about whether some cruise operators fully disclosed the
scale of coronavirus outbreaks.
On
Wednesday, a class action lawsuit was filed against Costa Cruise Lines, a
subsidiary of Carnival, which operates the Costa Luminosa. At least seven
people died after boarding the ship, and the suit – which has not yet been
certified by a judge – alleges that the cruise should never have started on 5
March due to safety concerns about Covid-19.
In
Australia, police in New South Wales have launched a criminal investigation
into the conduct of Carnival Australia over whether the company was transparent
about the scale of the Covid-19 outbreak on one of its cruise ships, the Ruby
Princess.
Authorities
said they had been assured by Carnival Australia that the disease had not been
detected on the ship before it docked in Sydney on 19 March and hundreds of
passengers were allowed to leave. The Ruby Princess became the country’s single
largest source of Covid-19 cases in Australia, accounting for around a third of
deaths.
In San
Diego, the Celebrity Eclipse was allowed to unload about 2,300 passengers on 30
March after assuring port officials that there was no illness aboard the ship,
which had been turned away from a port in Chile.
But a woman
hospitalised immediately after leaving the ship tested positive for Covid-19.
Her husband, David Nystrom, told local television in San Diego that the cruise
ship’s dispensary had been overflowing with sick patients for a week.
“She had
all the symptoms a week before that ship docked and many other people had the
symptoms,” Nystrom said.
He said the
ship’s medical bay “was standing room only. I would guess at least 50 people
every day sitting in chairs waiting, people sweating, people coughing”. Royal
Caribbean, the ship’s operator, did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile,
Florida’s attorney general, Ashley Moody, has announced an investigation into
whether sales pitches by Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL) sought to downplay
concerns about Covid-19 – in one case allegedly telling customers: “The
coronavirus can only survive in cold temperatures, so the Caribbean is a
fantastic choice for your next cruise.” NCL did not respond when contacted by
the Guardian.
Passengers
have also launched individual lawsuits. On Tuesday a couple who were infected
on a cruise to Europe filed a suit against Costa Cruises in a US federal court.
Three
passengers died and many were infected on the voyage of the Costa Luminosa,
which left Florida on 5 March.
“This
cruise never should have set sail from Fort Lauderdale in the first place
because by 5 March 2020 the global cruise industry was well aware of the two
Princess cruise ships that resulted in a massive outbreak of the virus and
numerous deaths,” said Michael Winkleman, the attorney who filed the suit in a
statement obtained by the Miami Herald.
Carnival
Corporation, which owns Costa Cruises, Holland America Line and Carnival
Australia, did not comment on specific allegations in this article.
But in a
statement to the Guardian, the corporation said both it and its subsidiaries
had taken “more precautions and actions than most”.
“We have
only seven out of a fleet of 105 ships with guests who tested positive since
last December, when the first case became public. Unlike some, we immediately
took action and suspended our cruises in China and later in parts of Asia,” it
said.
Cruise
industry leaders have described the situations facing the stranded cruise ships
as coming “without warning” from an unprecedented crisis.
“These
travellers could have been any one of us or our families, unexpectedly caught
in the middle of this unprecedented closure of global borders that happened in
a matter of days and without warning,” said Orlando Ashford, the president of
Holland America Line, after four died on its Zaandam cruise ship.
Cruise
Lines International Association, the largest trade association for the
industry, confirmed the Guardian’s figures on vessels still at sea and said:
“Upon declaration by the WHO of a pandemic, CLIA member cruise lines
voluntarily suspended operations worldwide – making the cruise industry one of
the first to do so.”
But James
Walker, a Florida attorney who specialises in cases involving cruise ship
passengers, said the outbreaks on cruise ships around the world were “entirely
predictable” given there was so little government oversight of the industry.
He said the
cruise industry should have halted operations much sooner, and also criticised
the US government’s response to the crisis.
“It’s been
abysmal,” he said. “It seems out of control quite frankly. No one seems
to have a plan.”
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