Cruise ship with COVID outbreak aboard to dock at Melbourne
A cruise ship with a COVID-19 outbreak aboard is on its way to Victoria.
It is unclear how many people with coronavirus are on the Grand Princess, which can carry nearly 4000 passengers and crew and is due to arrive in Melbourne on Thursday.
Passengers disembark The Majestic Princess cruise ship at Station Pier in Melbourne earlier this month. That ship was also carrying passengers with COVID.Credit:Joe Armao
“Like many other tourism operators, we too have been impacted by the current fourth wave being experienced across Australia,” a Princess Cruises spokesperson said in a statement.
Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said she expected any cases onboard to stay away from the rest of the community.
“That’s the most important thing,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
“We know now that there are many cases of COVID that are not being counted or reported.”
About 95 per cent of guests on Princess Cruises vessels must be vaccinated, with the remaining five per cent of places allocated to those with medical exemptions.
Passengers with the virus are required to isolate for five days and their close contacts must have a test each day before leaving their cabin.
Indonesian authorities on Saturday requested an Australian cruise ship carrying about 2100 passengers and crew abandon the Balinese leg of its 17-day tour, following a COVID-19 outbreak on board.
The Queen Elizabeth left Sydney on November 15, stopping at Airlie Beach, Cairns, Port Douglas and Darwin, but cut short the final week of its tour after infections were detected aboard.
A spokeswoman for Cunard, owner of the ship, confirmed there was “an elevated level of transmission” on board, but declined to provide case numbers.
The abandonment of the Queen Elizabeth’s Bali tour follows the berthing of the Majestic Princess in Sydney earlier this month, carrying 800 COVID-positive passengers and crew. The positive cases, who were all either mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic, according to Carnival cruises, were able to disembark via a separate door and advised not to use public transport.
A Carnival Australia cruise ship carrying passengers with COVID-19 also arrived at Burnie on November 5. It was the first cruise ship to dock at the Tasmanian port since the start of the pandemic.
Cruise ship arrivals in Melbourne restarted in September after a three-year hiatus during which the industry became notorious for major COVID-19 outbreaks.
Thousands of passengers, including four Australians, were trapped aboard the Grand Princess off the coast of California at the outset of the pandemic in March 2020.
The ship was quarantined near San Francisco after 21 people, including 19 crew, tested positive for the virus.
AAP
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