“No sail rule” extended after CDC finds cruise lines not controlling pandemic

The CDC just extended the no sail order for cruise ships after it found that they failed to adequately put together a plan to handle the coronavirus.

Back on March 14, the CDC issued a “no sail order” which was put into place for 30 days.

This was a direction for ships that had not voluntarily suspended operations (although the Cruise Lines Int’l Assoc. (CLIA) had announced the day before that its members would voluntarily suspend cruise ship operations).

Well that order has just been renewed and could be in place for quite some time.

The order is set to be in place until one of the following 3 events takes place:

• Expiration of the Department of Health and Human Services’ declaration that COVID-19 constitutes a public health emergency.
• The CDC director modifies or rescinds its no-sail decision.
• Passage of 100 days from the time the new order is published in the Federal Register.

The order from the CDC goes into great detail about the many challenges that cruise lines have faced because of coronavirus.

It discusses a number of recent cruise ships that have reported coronavirus on board, including some that have had up to 250 people on board exhibiting symptoms and a handfull of deaths.

It also goes into detail about the public health concerns when passengers and crew members become ill on a cruise ship in such massive numbers and the dangers it presents for local hospitals, especially intensive care units.

But most importantly it highlights that the cruise industry has failed to address the pandemic properly.

The CDC stated that the pandemic “has not been controlled sufficiently by the cruise ship industry” and that cruise ship travel “markedly increases the risk and impact of the COVID-19 disease outbreak within the United States.”

It sounds like the cruise line industry is now working closely with the CDC to make better decisions when it comes to its operations but their initial attempts fell short.

For example, they drafted new response plans that provided details on how they will handle preventing, mitigating, and responding to the spread of coronavirus.

But the CDC was not pleased with the framework and felt that it relied too much on government and shoreside hospital resources.

They pointed out that their response plans must provide further details for things like how the industry will handle acute care for needs of the critically ill and the logistics for things like testing, disinfection, PPE, onshore transportation, and others.

Basically, cruise ships will need to have an entire new set of protocols that they will follow to prevent the spread of disease on board and to provide adequate healthcare to those who come down with a virus.

Once they do that, they might be able to resume operations quicker than they would otherwise.