The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has dropped its COVID-19 health warning for cruise ship travelers.
The federal health agency said it will leave it up to travelers to determine if they feel safe boarding a cruise ship, although it still issued a cruise warning.
“While cruising always poses some risk of transmission of COVID-19, travelers will make their own risk assessment when choosing to travel on a cruise ship, similar to any other travel environment,” CDC spokesman Dave Daigle said in a statement to news agencies last week.
Daigle added that the CDC decision was based on “the current status of the pandemic and the decline in COVID-19 cases aboard cruise ships in recent weeks.”
COVID-19 cases have been falling in the United States since mid-January. Hospital admissions also fell to a new low on April 1, according to the agency.
Following the CDC’s decision, cruise lines and industry groups praised the move.
The Cruise Lines International Association said the federal agency is finally “recognizing the effective public health measures in place on cruise lines and is beginning to level the playing field between cruise lines and similarly located land-based venues.”
“We’re very excited about this,” Virgin Voyages CEO Tom McAlpin told Yahoo Finance. “We’re finally seeing that the CDC is listening to what we’ve been saying for a long time: that cruising is the safest way to travel. Of course they have a tough job, but I think they’re finally realizing that cruising is safe.”
Cruise operators had also said the health agency was discriminating against the industry when hotels and airlines were allowed to operate with limited or no restrictions.
Last week, several passengers and crew tested positive for COVID-19 on a Princess Cruises ship returning from the Panama Canal before returning to San Francisco. The cruise operator told outlets that 100 percent of crew and passengers were vaccinated.
The guidelines for cruise ship travel on the health department’s page no longer show a scale for their warning. Instead, it now only says that guests should ensure they are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccines before boarding the ships.
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and restrictions have hit the cruise industry – amid early speculation that cruise lines were “super spreaders” of the virus. Industry data suggests cruise lines lost a combined $63 billion in 2020 and 2021.
COVID-19 is caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter at The Epoch Times, based in New York.