This week, world tourism received a new sudden blow, which can put an end to the whole industry – the industry of sea cruises: after the scandalous “stories”, tourists are already shying away from cruises, and here is a new, and grandiose image blow. Yes, the other day a new “covid ship” docked in Sydney: we are talking about the Majestic Princess liner, on which hundreds of tourists infected with COVID have been recorded. Tourists are being tested and isolated while — predictably — being blamed for mass contagion. Experts mention that the practice of mass isolation and global hysteria started in 2020 from “covid liners”, and again give pessimistic forecasts for cruise operators.
“The cruise ship is on the highest possible level of COVID preparedness for those on board, with a level three alert,” Health Services New South Wales in Australia said. This means that at least 20% of people on it are infected with the coronavirus. And since there are more than 3,000 passengers and 1,000 crew members on the liner, at least several hundred are infected. The local press operates with data on 800 patients.
Marguerite Fitzgerald, president of the cruise operator Carnival Australia, added that about 800 people, mostly tourists, have been infected. “It’s a 12-day flight and we started seeing cases about halfway through,” she said. She also added that most of the infected tourists are mildly ill or asymptomatic and are isolated in their cabins. According to the representative of the company, the result of several hundred infected people was revealed after mass testing of tourists. At the same time, unlike the practice of 2020, tourists whose test turned out to be negative are released from the ship.
One such released tourist added that he believed the cruise operator had handled the protocols well, but the passengers had not listened to the instructions. “We were scared when we heard about the mass infections and the quarantine, but we had a negative result and Princess Majestic did well with the protocols. We wore masks for the past seven days and were very careful when we went ashore, but some people just don’t pay attention to safety rules, and that was the problem, people just don’t take COVID seriously,” said a passenger of the “Covid liner”.
We will remind you that after the tragic story of the quarantine in Japan on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in February 2020, as well as the lesser-known similar stories of “covid ships”, cruise operators fell into a serious crisis: tourists began to shy away from ships as potential quarantine nurseries. Moreover, no one wanted to be isolated in a floating “hospital”. And now the “covid ship” is standing at the pier again.