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For the second consecutive cruise, the Caribbean Princess curtails their itinerary and sails for port early as passenger and crew are afflicted with Norovirus.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) Vessel Safety Program has two reports present for 2020 and both of them are for the Caribbean Princess and the back-to-back itineraries of 2/2-2/16 and 2/16/-3/1.
This iteration of the norovirus spread indicates that 7.5% of the passengers came down sick, which equates to 228 of 3039 passengers, with 17 of 1162 crew members - that’s a lot of vomiting and diarrhea.
CDC advises that in response to the outbreak, Princess Cruises and crew aboard the ship reported the following actions:
- Completing intense cleanings of the vessel on February 21 and 23.
- Increasing cleaning and sanitation procedures implemented according to outbreak prevention and response plan.
- Collecting stool specimens from passenger and/or crew gastrointestinal illness cases.
- Making emergency department announcements 3 times daily in addition to daily Captain’s announcement.
- Sending daily gastrointestinal illness reports to VSP and Caribbean public health port authorities.
CARIBBEAN PRINCESS’ STATEMENT
“Caribbean Princess has ended its 14-day Caribbean cruise one day early, out of an abundance of caution, due to guests reporting symptoms consistent with mild cases of gastrointestinal illness and confirmed through onboard testing to have been caused by norovirus. Those individuals are being treated by the ship’s medical team, and there are no cases of coronavirus amongst guests or crew. Norovirus is a common stomach illness prevalent throughout the winter season.”
We’ll be watching the next 14-day cruise to see if the issue is systemic with the Caribbean Princess, or if the deep cleaning of 29 Feb - 01 March was sufficient to curtail the repeated spread of norovirus on the ship.
