48 people test positive for Covid-19 on Royal Caribbean cruise ship
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A photo from March 27, 2018, shows Royal Caribbean's Symphony of the Seas berthed at a port in Malaga, Spain.
PHOTO: REUTERS
NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) - Royal Caribbean Cruises said one of its ships arrived in Miami on Saturday (Dec 18) with 48 passengers and crew members testing positive for Covid-19 after an outbreak on board.
Cases aboard the Symphony of the Seas were identified using contact tracing after one guest tested positive.
Almost all - 98 per cent - of those who tested positive were fully vaccinated, and 95 per cent of the people onboard were fully vaccinated, the Miami-based company said in a statement on Sunday.
All guests who tested positive were asymptomatic or had "mild symptoms", spokesman Lyan Sierra-Caro said. "We monitored their health."
The outbreak comes as the cruise industry tries to recover from last year's Covid-driven shutdown and bad publicity in the early days of the pandemic after some nations refused to let exposed passengers disembark.
Royal Caribbean's shares fell 3.2 per cent to US$70.06 (S$95.70) before the start of regular trading Monday in New York.
The stock had lost a quarter of its value since Nov 5, closing last Friday at US$72.51, in part as infections once again start to surge worldwide.
No future voyages of the ship will be affected, Ms Sierra-Caro said.
Sailing on the ship requires full vaccination and negative test results for people above the age of 12.
Children who are not vaccinated must have a prior negative test and also test negative at the terminal before boarding, the company said.
Rival Carnival Corp is due to report quarterly earnings on Monday morning.