Posted on 07/11/2021 9:12:54 AM PDT by Capt. Tom
A cruise on one of the first vessels to restart operations in Alaska is ending early after two passengers and a crew member tested positive for COVID-19.
Small-ship specialist American Cruise Lines‘ 170-passenger American Constellation is returning to its home port of Juneau, Alaska, four days ahead of schedule after the positive cases were discovered on Friday.
The ship was visiting the small Alaska town of Petersburg at the time.
“American Cruise Lines has implemented its COVID-19 response plan in Alaska and is coordinating with state and local health officials following the detection of COVID-19 on board,” the line said early Saturday in a statement sent to TPG. “Out of an abundance of caution, the line’s small ship will return to port in Juneau and the next cruise, scheduled to depart on July 14th, will be canceled.”
The two passengers and one crew member who tested positive for COVID-19, along with their close contacts, were taken off the ship in Petersburg and isolated, the government of Juneau said in a press release.
The ship was sailing with 162 passengers and 52 crew members, including an onboard nurse — all of whom were tested for COVID-19 after a passenger began feeling ill.
All of the passengers were required to be fully vaccinated to sail. Many, but not all, of the crew were fully vaccinated.
The government of Juneau said unvaccinated crew members will be quarantined on board the ship in Juneau for 10 days. The remaining passengers on board will be flown home from Juneau.
Isolated cases of COVID-19 on the cruise ships that have restarted operations in recent months are not unusual, and cruise lines have new protocols in place designed to minimize both the spread of the illness and the disruption to the cruise experience when such cases occur. The situation aboard American Constellation is unusual in that it is resulting in the early cancellation of the current sailing and the next sailing of the vessel.
Indeed, American Constellation is the only cruise vessel that has restarted operations in North America in recent months to have a sailing cut short due to COVID-19.
American Cruise Lines was one of the first cruise operators in North America to restart sailings and until this week had carried more than 10,000 passengers on 130 sailings this year without incident, according to the line.
The Connecticut-based line is the leader in small-ship cruises in U.S. waters with 13 vessels that sail along coastal waterways and on rivers from New England to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
A spokesperson for the line told TPG that passengers on this week’s American Constellation sailing would be compensated for the portion of the trip they will miss.
They will be quarantined along with their healthy contacts.
This cruise line seems to have a "Stop the world, I want to get off" reaction to a COVID out break. But remember this is an American flagged cruise ship and is subject to American filed lawsuits by the other passengers. - Tom
Pathetic.
2021 is turning into a clown show.
The cruise industry is screwed. I hate to say it, but even prior to Covid it was the #1 hotspot for outbreaks of norovirus and other more common illnesses.
We are now learning that even the vaccine does not stop you from getting the virus although it can mitigate the illness for some. Full disclosure, the fine print never said it prevented you from getting the virus.
If I owned a cruise line I would do a prophylactic cruise where everyone agrees to take the remedies before they board the boat (and during the cruise if more than 3 days). Somebody should try that idea to save the industry because under the current guidelines and public health policy the ships will remain idle.
The clowns are in charge.
Huh?
I hate to think how much it cost just to maintain a giant cruise ship. Has to be well over $25 million per year.
Were all 3 fully vaccinated?
Were they showing any symptoms?
if a virus doesn’t show any symptoms... is it really a threat?
Hmmmm.....so much for THAT requirement.
It would serve as a good test of the efficacy of the prophylactics as well. For some reason, the CDC and leftist politicians do not seem to want to know if the prophylactics work.
“We are now learning that even the vaccine does not stop you from getting the virus although it can mitigate the illness for some. Full disclosure, the fine print never said it prevented you from getting the virus.”
Full disclosure? Why do you intentionally mislead?
The "vaccine" was never advertised as a way to not get the China Virus. Rather it was advertised as preventing serious illness or death should the person receiving the "vaccine" contract the virus.
To this day, I fail to understand why it's called a "vaccine" since traditional vaccines actually prevent an infection.
I bet it’s much more than $25,000. The crew size is huge and then you have the fuel and maintenance.
Now you have to add in the cost of constant testing on the ship and when someone inevitably tests positive or becomes ill you have the ships stores on board that are completely wasted.
The food is good and it ain’t cheap. Fuel and food costs have both become more expensive. The profit margin for this industry was not that great before the pandemic with cheap energy and food costs.
The only answer will be to find people willing to cruise who accept that someone on the boat will test positive and they don’t care, but I don’t think many of us fully realize what is still being done in the name of the pandemic. There are still thousands of Australian citizens who have not been allowed to return home for a year due to Covid. Canada is still shut down.
These are goofy times.
There are approximately a zillion diseases one could catch every day. On board ship or anywhere. Certainly some more lethal than COVID.
COVID just has a better press agent.
America is now operating like a grade school teacher making the whole class stay after school because one kid misbehaved.
Good point @ 12.
I think in hindsight, if Trump could have pushed anything harder during Covid he wishes he had pushed treatments as hard as the vaccine push. We could have done both.
I hear people say all the time that if there was a remedy they would not have gotten the EUA to allow the vaccines to be approved. That was nothing more than a pen swipe for Trump.
Instead, we let the media dominate the response for partisan purposes. The biggest bunch of moronic know-nothings in the history of humanity called the shots because orange man bad.
Why am I misleading?
The media and Fraudci said the vaccine did things that those who made the vaccines never said. They have also neglected to talk about things the vaccines are doing that big pharma refuses to admit.
Knowing this, the cruise lines are trying to dance a very fine line. They need capacity cruises to get into the black financially, but every cruise represents a gamble because their entire business model involves being allowed to cycle as many people through their floating disease incubators as they can.
It's probably not so much of a gamble for the patrons, there are plenty of people out there just itching to get on a boat and turn off their brains for a week, covid be damned, and they accept the risks that go along with it. It's those government bureaucrats that think their entire job is to eliminate danger and risk from the world that are the real threat. Turn off a segment of customers and you market to a different segment. Become a concern of the government and there's no other government you can market to as an alternative.
Trump put Pence in charge. Pence actually received an email from a pair of doctors touting HCQ that was CC: to Fauxi.
After 3+ years of attacks, some even from repubs, Trump seemed a little gun shy.
To be fair and appear impartial they should start testing people leaving grocery stores. When someone tests positive shut the store down.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.