The Holland America cruise ship, whose stop in Grand Cayman was cancelled this week, is now among 88 cruise ships under investigation by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for onboard COVID-19 cases.
According to the CDC’s list of cruise ships operating – or planning to operate – in US waters, updated on 29 Dec., Holland America’s Nieuw Statendam ship is now under investigation by the CDC.
Using the agency’s five-tier colour-coded system for monitoring COVID, the vessel is ‘yellow’ – the scale’s middle category. It means the ship’s reported cases of COVID-19 have met the threshold for CDC investigation.
According to the CDC guidance, this means cases have been reported among one or more crew members, and/or in 0.10% or more of passengers, so, for example, if a ship has 6,500 passengers on board, the CDC’s investigation threshold is met if there are seven or more cases among passengers occurring during the previous seven days, or if this percentage includes passenger cases occurring within five days of disembarkation.
It is unclear which of the criteria the Holland America cruise ship, with 1,600 passengers on board, was flagged for, but according to the CDC list, the ship remains under observation and an investigation has been started.
Nieuw Statendam was initially approved by government back in November to call on Grand Cayman on 28 Dec., as part of the cruise’s Western Caribbean itinerary.
However, last week, that decision was reversed by government. Had the ship been allowed to call on Cayman, it would have been the first cruise ship to visit local ports since borders were closed in March 2020.
Government explained, through a statement, that the decision to pull the plug on the call was “in line with the recently implemented policy requiring all travellers to be tested the day prior to their departure to the Cayman Islands”.
It stated that this requirement could not be accommodated. The ship’s visit had been intended as a trial run, to prepare the island for the eventual return of cruise tourism.
Acting Minister for Tourism Dwayne Seymour stated that the decision had not been “taken lightly” and that the inconvenience was regretted.
Cayman Islands Tourism Association President Marc Langevin told the Cayman Compass that the about-turn by the government was “a disappointment for the many members whose livelihoods depends on this important segment of our tourism product”.
Under the CDC guidelines for ships listed as ‘restricted passenger voyage’, like Nieuw Statendam, the agency will investigate cruise ships that reach the investigation threshold for COVID-19 cases among crew or passengers.
“As part of the investigation, CDC will obtain additional information from the cruise ship, such as case exposure histories, details about close contacts, traveler vaccination rates, and onboard medical resources. CDC will work closely with the cruise line and consider multiple factors before assigning a ‘Red’ status to the ship,” the guidelines state.
Red status means the ship is at or above the CDC investigation threshold for COVID-19 cases among passengers and crew.
“Based on CDC’s investigation, additional public health precautions, such as returning to port immediately or delaying the next voyage, will be taken to help ensure the health and safety of onboard travelers or newly arriving travelers,” the guidelines state.
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