Recently, a COVID outbreak was reported among the passengers and crew of a fully-vaccinated cruise. According to ABC News, the Ruby Princess docked in San Francisco on Sunday afternoon with an unknown number of COVID-19 cases discovered onboard.
According to Princess Cruises, which owns the ship, the 15-day cruise through Panama’s canals set out with a 100% vaccination rate, and passengers were required to have a negative COVID test before boarding. However, upon the liner’s return to San Francisco, it had “several” confirmed COVID-19 cases.
“During the cruise, we identified some positive COVID-19 cases amongst our guests and crew members,” the cruise line company said. “They were all asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic and were isolated and quarantined while monitored and cared for by our shipboard medical team.”
Princess Cruises explained not all of those affected by COVID-19 had completed their isolation period by the time the ship docked. The company revealed all those needing further periods of quarantine were provided private transportation back to their homes or to hotels equipped for COVID-19 isolation.
Before landing in San Francisco, the cruise sailed from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to the city of Cartagena in Colombia, Puerto Amador and Puntarenas in Panama, and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.
Later that Sunday, the ship sailed out for its next 15-day cruise to Hawaii. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revealed it is monitoring the situation on the Ruby Princess due to the repeated outbreaks onboard.
The incident is not the first that the cruise line has experienced during the pandemic.
Some of the first known outbreaks occurred on Princess Cruise ships. The line’s Diamond Princess reported an outbreak while docked in Yokohama, Japan, in February 2020.
The following month, passengers on the Grand Princess tested positive while traveling between California, Mexico, and Hawaii.
Earlier this year, the Ruby Princess returned to San Francisco in January 2021, having discovered twelve cases of COVID-19 among passengers.
The CDC initially classified cruise ships as a Level 4, or “extremely high,” health risk during the peak of the omicron wave.
Still, the agency recently lowered the threat to Level 2, indicating a more moderate risk of COVID-19 infection for cruise ship passengers.