CDC order for cruise ships reportedly soft8k8 com log inened

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week posted orders that extended an earlier ban that idled cruise ships through mid-July, but the White House Coronavirus Task Force has cut it by 20 days, USA Today reported Monday.

The newspaper said emails and internal documents it obtained show the CDC's original order, posted on its website, had been softened. Ships will be able to sail again in July, and an explicit warning that they could be docked even longer had been deleted, wrote the newspaper.

"Sorry to do this, but the Office of the Vice President has instructed us to pull the No Sail Order Extension from the website immediately," a CDC senior official wrote to staff early Thursday, the morning after the notice had been posted, USA Today reported.

The newspaper updated the story later Monday to add that the White House denied that Vice-President Mike Pence personally ordered that the no-sail extension be watered down.

"That direction was not given by the vice-president's office," said Devin O'Malley, a Pence adviser, who didn't elaborate on where it came from, nor did the CDC give an explanation, USA Today reported.

The CDC initially issued the "no sail" order March 14, one day after the cruise industry announced a voluntary suspension of operation from US ports.

It said the order is effective until the earliest of three situations occurs: federal health officials determine the coronavirus is no longer a public health emergency; the CDC chief rescinds or modifies the order based on specific public health or other consideration; or 100 days from the date of publication in the Federal Register.

Roughly 50 cruise ships are idling off the East Coast and in the Bahamas, and 45 are off the West Coast and Gulf Coast, the CDC said.

As of March 14, the CDC said it was "aware of 15 cruise ships at port or anchorage in the United States with known or suspected COVID-19 infection among the crew who remain onboard".

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) issued a statement Friday accusing the CDC of singling out the cruise industry, adding: "should the suspension of sailing extend well beyond the appropriate time to resume business, the economic impact could be significant".

Each day of the suspension results in a total economic-impact loss of about $92 million and the loss of more than 300 direct and 620 total American jobs, the statement said.

Cruise ships have been the site of numerous cases of COVID-19. Since the first case of a coronavirus infection was found on the Diamond Princess on Feb 4 near Yokohama, Japan, more than 20 cruise ships have had incidents of infection.

Currently, there are about 10 cruise ships with Australian passengers stuck at sea because of COVID-19, according to a CNN report.

On one of those ships, the Greg Mortimer, 125 out of 217 people onboard have tested positive for the coronavirus.

The cruise liner is operated by Australia's Aurora Expeditions and departed March 15 on a voyage to Antarctica and South Georgia Island. Since the beginning of April, the ship has remained off the coast of Uruguay after authorities refused to allow passengers to disembark.

But the current spate of bad news about cruise ships seems not to have dimmed travelers' enthusiasm for boarding them in the future. According to the Los Angeles Times, bookings for cruise trips were up slightly in March compared with the same time last year.

Online cruise marketplace cruisecompete.com said bookings for 2021 increased 40 percent in the last month and a half. Only 11 percent of the bookings are from people whose 2020 trips were canceled.