The Trump administration is now pushing to spend billions to prop up the cruise industry and other hospitality and travel businesses that have been crushed by the pandemic.
“Through the years, a huge amount of federal staff resources have been diverted to dealing with cruise ship health outbreaks,” said Nicole Lurie, who served as a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services during the Obama administration. “Given all the demands on public health resources, it may be worth asking about the public investment we make in protecting cruise ship passengers by putting in place better strategies to prevent future outbreaks involving cruise ships.”
After it was clear the coronavirus was spreading around the world, passenger screening was limited. Even on cruises where officials knew of positive tests, such as the Grand Princess, strict quarantines confining passengers to their rooms were not imposed immediately.
Inconsistent deboarding procedures also meant thousands of passengers who traveled on a ship that had carried a passenger who tested positive for the coronavirus went home with little or no medical screening — possibly taking the virus back to their communities.
Trump has long-standing connections to the industry, including through Carnival Corp. Chairman Micky Arison, a friend whose company helped sponsor Trump’s reality show franchise “The Apprentice” over the years. On Thursday, Trump said he spoke to Arison, who had offered up his ships to house non-coronavirus patients.
“You don’t want to lose industries like this,” he said Thursday. “These are incredible industries. You can’t lose them.”
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention boosted its warning this week against cruising to a higher level, advising any recent travelers to isolate themselves for two weeks. It also put local health departments on notice for the first time about six ships that carried infected passengers in the last month — which have already disembarked travelers who were then not quarantined.
Some customers and their family members now say the industry held back information and should have reacted more quickly.
“To avoid a panic that might collapse the industry, the cruise lines continued to mislead their passengers,” said Ashley Ecker, whose San Diego-based parents are aboard the Costa Luminosa, which continued on a voyage across the Atlantic earlier this month after a woman, later diagnosed as positive for the virus, disembarked with breathing problems. By the time the ship reached a port in France on Thursday, five additional passengers and two crew members had flu-like symptoms.
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