CLIA blasts CDC’s new “complex and unwarranted” cruise guidelines

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new guidelines on Wednesday (Feb. 9) for its voluntary COVID-19 Cruise Ship Program, which gives cruise lines until Feb. 18 to opt in or not.

Many of the instructions outlined in the CDC’s original Conditional Sail Order (CSO), which expired on Jan. 15, remain in the new program.

But new to the program is a new "vaccination status" tier system.

In the new guidance, ships are split into three categories: "Highly vaccinated" ships have at least 95 per cent of passengers and crew fully vaccinated. Currently, 103 ships fall into this category.

"Not highly vaccinated" ships have less than 95 per cent of passengers and crew fully vaccinated.

Vessels under the newest tier, "vaccination standard of excellence," have at least 95 per cent of passengers and crew "up to date" with their vaccines, including booster shots.

Quarantine and isolation also vary depending on vaccination status.

For example: with vaccination standard of excellence ships, close contacts to COVID-positive people must quarantine until at least five full days after their last exposure.

Isolation on vaccination standard of excellence ships can discontinue after five days. On ships that do not meet the vaccination standard of excellence, isolation must last at least 10 days.

Anyone with symptoms similar to COVID-19 must be immediately isolated, the CDC says, and those who test positive are not to be re-tested for a false positive.

Cruise lines with ships of any vaccination classification can opt into the CDC’s program, but they must share their vaccination status with the CDC.

The CDC’s website shows each ship's colour status and also displays the number of COVID-19 cases reported on board. (Click here to view the CDC’s dashboard).

Other changes in the new program include an online Enhanced Data Collection form, which lets operators report if no cases were detected.

Testing measures will remain, but cruise lines won’t need pre-approval from the CDC for diagnostic and screening tests.

The CDC says it will review its guidance based on public health conditions and available scientific evidence no later than March 18, 2022, and update as needed.

"Counterproductive"

Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) issued a statement yesterday, responding to the CDC’s new program – and it isn’t happy.

“Regrettably, upon initial review, the latest CDC guidance appears out of step with the actual public health conditions on cruise ships and unnecessary in light of societal trends away from more restrictive measures,” the association wrote. “We are confounded by the CDC’s imposition of even more complex and unwarranted measures which ignore empirical evidence that the industry’s protocols have provided a greater level of COVID mitigation than most any other setting.”

CLIA says the CDC’s guidance for multitiered cruises is “counterproductive to consumers, creating market confusion between the various tiers, and potentially unworkable in practice.”

The association is also “dismayed” by the CDC’s decision to maintain any Travel Health Notice for cruise.

The CDC, currently, advises against cruise travel.

“The chance of getting COVID-19 on cruise ships is high because the virus spreads easily between people in close quarters on board ships,” the agency writes on its website.

But CLIA takes issue with this statement.

Compared to other sectors which are larger, cater to magnitudes more patrons, and operate more conveyances and facilities without testing and at a fraction of the cruise industry’s vaccination rates, “cruising has emerged as the safest venue for mitigating COVID-19,” CLIA says.

The vaccination rate on cruise ships is close to 100 per cent, whereas on land it is about 63 per cent, CLIA points out. 

“It seems unnecessarily discriminatory against cruise to maintain that the chances of getting COVID-19 on a cruise ‘is very high’ even if you are up to date with your COVID-19 vaccines,” CLIA said Wednesday. “This discounts the importance of what the CDC has otherwise promoted as the single most important touchstone for public health and safety.”

CLIA said its members will continue to comply with all applicable regulations. 

“CLIA and its members are committed to continue working with the CDC in mutual, cooperative partnership as part of our shared commitment to putting health and safety first,” the association wrote. “Part and parcel of that goal is seeing signals from CDC that it recognizes the lengths the entire cruise industry has gone to and the success it has achieved in guarding against COVID-19.”

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