Health and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville. Photo: Donavan McIntosh/Tribune staff
By KHRISNA RUSSELL
Tribune Chief Reporter
krussell@tribunemedia.net
HEALTH and Wellness Minister Dr Michael Darville says he’s pleased with the COVID-19 protocols put in place by the cruise line industry, while confirming a ship that docked at Coco Cay in The Bahamas suffered a virus outbreak among passengers on board.
According to reports, at least 48 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Royal Caribbean’s Symphony of the Seas.
The itinerary was a seven-night trip that left from Miami on December 11 and visited St Maarten; St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands; and Coco Cay, the cruise line’s private island in The Bahamas.
Dr Darville said by the time the ship arrived at Coco Cay there were 23 people in isolation.
The incident comes as officials are in the process of reviewing protocols to see where changes can be made, according to Tourism, Investments and Aviation Minister Chester Cooper.
“We know that that same vessel stopped in Coco Cay,” Dr Darville told reporters yesterday. “When it arrived in Coco Cay there was a report that there was 23 people on board who were in isolation.
“I can say this much: in the early stages of me being minister we had the opportunity to visit just about every cruise ship. We went on all the cays and I am very pleased that the cruise ship industry has a very robust protocol in managing COVID cases.
“They have multiple negative pressure rooms on board their vessels. They have really strong contact surveillance techniques and they have the physicians on board and so we are quite pleased based on the regulations in place with the cruise ships. “We believe that they are capable to handle their cases.
“And if we do have a case that may decompensate what is on board, we do have a programme here in The Bahamas where that individual would be airlifted to a tertiary facility abroad.”
Asked about the situation yesterday, Mr Cooper said the country has “excellent protocols”.
He said in conversations with the cruise line, there was assurance that their measures are “exceeding” industry standards.
“The ship did come to Coco Cay,” Mr Cooper said. “There were incidents. There is no report of new cases as far as I know on Coco Cay itself but suffice to say it’s the nature of the business.
“We hope that we can contain the COVID crisis because what we do not want to see is a shutdown of the cruise industry as we’ve seen several months ago.
“If you look in the harbour we have five-six ships a day. This is a great time for tourism and it’s a little concerning but the Ministry of Health as you may already know we are revising our rules.
“We are making them better as we go along and we are going to ensure that we are competitive but we also protect the health and safety of the Bahamian people,” Mr Cooper said.
There were 6,091 passengers and crew on board the ship in question. According to international reports, 95 percent of them were fully vaccinated. Of the 48 who tested positive for the coronavirus, 98 percent were fully vaccinated.
Royal Caribbean said in a statement the passengers who tested positive either had no symptoms or displayed mild side effects.
Comments
ted4bz 3 years ago
"...officials are in the process of reviewing protocols to see where changes can be made,..." This is a maze designed with no way out. We know how this is happening, only the vaccinated and negative tested can board carriers and are spreading the variants they are making. But only the vaccinated do not know they are doing this. Stop pretending, we already know the solution, and that is to come up with more temptations to lure the fickle and desired to go get the vaccines/boosters. This makes more virus factories, more carriers qualify to board more flights and more vessels to spread endless varieties of variants across the globe, perpetually. It’s a hamster wheel.
ohdrap4 3 years ago
The vaccinated are too eager to become better than others.
People cannot be richer, prettier, have dedicated private bathroom, belong to any kind of ethnic group or calll anyone fat. They have to improvise.
ForeverDreamer 3 years ago
Are willing (real property, declaring your goods when travelling, paying stamp duty) persons also trying to become better than others when they demand the government to make everyone else pay up?
Y'all be in a fantasy of oppression.
ohdrap4 3 years ago
My aunt told me the unvaccinated cannot enter her house.
I will save money on gifts
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
lol
stillwaters 3 years ago
He will be very unrelaxed in short order
tribanon 3 years ago
It's patently obvious the very corrupt Royal Caribbean and other corrupt big players in the cruise line industry, e.g., Disney, Carnival, etc., and their equally corrupt partners, including the CCP, who together have control of our nation's major ports, now effectively "own" our government and are robbing the Bahamian people blind of their most precious assets and resources.
ForeverDreamer 3 years ago
Where is the robbery? I know they pollute with waste/defecation water, but this was happening long before and is no new thing to suggest more control...
tribanon 3 years ago
Open your eyes. Most parts of what was once a thriving downtown Bay Street district with many profitable shops, night clubs, restaurants, etc., have become a graveyard with the remaining parts reduced to selling low cost t-shirts, trinkets, etc., imported from Communist China and other Asian countries.
For decades now the pockets of sea arrival visitors has been picked clean by the ruthlessly greedy all-for-them business model of the cruise-line enterprises like Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Disney, etc., leaving little for these cheap skate visitors to contribute to our economy. We must pivot our tourist based economy towards the much more lucrative air arrival vistors, and the sooner the better.
ForeverDreamer 3 years ago
But you gave no data to what has changed. Private islands? What is the economic change of impact? Without any relative data, it's just barking at sounds in the bush when the sounds could ultimately have been net positives...
tribanon 3 years ago
You're not only too lazy to open your eyes but also too lazy to do your own homework. There is loads of information to be found all over the World Wide Web about how the ruthlessly greedy and corrupt business model of the cruise ship industry has all but destroyed the local economies of the small nations they exploit.
temptedbythefruitofanother 3 years ago
"Relaxed" lmfao. How relaxed is this bonehead going to be when 75% of the unvaccinated idiots in the Bahamas need an ICU bed?
sheeprunner12 3 years ago
You got the Fauci bug too, hey? Stop the fearmongering
ForeverDreamer 3 years ago
Sheep rather a larger amount of folks die than accept science I guess.
ohdrap4 3 years ago
Welcome to the forum Fauci baby.
ForeverDreamer 3 years ago
Been on here from 2015 bud, and you haven't posted anything of valid insight since I've noticed your crazed writings over the last few months.
ThisIsOurs 3 years ago
Nowhere in the world has anyone reported escalating Omicron death rates. Our situation is slightly different because of the high rate of comorbidities. So its time to watch but no time to be hysterical. It may be that Omicron is having such a low impact because the most vulnerable have unfortunately succumbed to earlier variants
TalRussell 3 years ago
Here's sometin' educational is directed @ComradeSheeprunner12, about an important thing wasn't known, that us before my research about de arrival of people on de island now known as Long Island in de UK Colony is they're de only people, known to have traveled with their own Sheeps and everything else like this and that pretty much can account for why to this ver day, so many sheeps are easily spotted runnin' lose and about island's towns, settlements and communities , ― Yes?
carltonr61 3 years ago
Pharma is beginning to be sued for vaccine deaths and injury caused by their vaccines so pandemic should end soon. Too too too many athletes or persons with high heart rate activity are just dropping dead.
lunalula 3 years ago
Pharma can't be sued. It's written in their fine print. They have no liability for injury or death. If that doesn't make people suspicious about this experimental injection, I don't know what would.
sheeprunner12 3 years ago
So, why should any sensible human being take a "vaccine" whose maker cannot be sued??? ........ Even in the USA
tribanon 3 years ago
Governments around the world have all followed the US government and given the big pharma COVID vaccine producers and their bio-tech partners complete and full immunity from civil lawsuits related to harm and/or death caused to anyone vaccinated with these experimental vaccines. In fact, big pharma and their bio-tech partners have been provided with much better immunity from law suits than the immunity the vaccinated get from the Red China Virus.
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