Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Cruise Industry Salty Over CDC Plan to Keep Travelers Safe From COVID at Sea

posted by martyb on Thursday April 08 2021, @12:14AM   Printer-friendly
from the Cruising-COVID-19-Cauldrons dept.

Fnord666 writes:

Cruise industry salty over CDC plan to keep travelers safe from COVID at sea:

The cruise industry is rather salty about the latest federal guidance for safe pandemic sailing, calling it "burdensome" and "unworkable. "

The new guidance is an updated phase of the Framework for Conditional Sailing Order (CSO), released April 2 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While it does not mandate vaccinations for all staff and cruisegoers, it does recommend the shots and requires added layers of health measures to try giving any onboard COVID-19 outbreaks the heave-ho—which is exceedingly difficult to do on the tightly packed, highly social vessels.

Among several changes, the guidance requires cruise operators to increase how frequently they report the number of COVID-19 cases onboard, upping reporting from weekly to daily. It also requires cruise lines to implement new routine testing for crew members. Additionally, the guidance requires that cruise lines have agreements set up with port authorities and local health authorities to ensure that, in the event of an outbreak, there will be coordination and infrastructure necessary to safely quarantine, isolate, and treat passengers and crew on land.

Once those requirements are met, cruise operators can run mock cruises with volunteer passengers and, if all goes well, apply for a "Conditional Sailing Certificate."

In a statement released Monday, the prominent industry trade group Cruise Lines International Association released a statement calling the new guidance "unduly burdensome, largely unworkable."

The CLIA claims the health guidance "deprives US workers from participating in the economic recovery" and provides "no discernable path forward or timeframe for resumption" of cruises originating in the country. The group ended its statement by urging the Biden administration to "consider the ample evidence that supports lifting the CSO this month to allow for the planning of a controlled return to service this summer."

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Cruise Industry Salty Over CDC Plan to Keep Travelers Safe From COVID at Sea | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 40 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:59AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @01:59AM (#1134579)

    While the CLIA may be a lobbying organization with teeth that can make a difference, the government couldn't give a rats ass about the lines, who are invariably based outside of the US and have their ships built in foreign countries too.

    They're also almost completely crewed by non-Americans. Typically Norwegians for navigational/command crew and southeast Asians for the hotel accommodation/service jobs.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:09AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 08 2021, @04:09AM (#1134635)

    Yes. I came in to post that, after reading "deprives US workers from participating in the economic recovery". The floating cesspool industry also, to the best of my knowledge, pays little or no US taxes.