The new variant of COVID, Omicron is new to us but has a swift impact worldwide. Caused several restrictions for many countries and hit many companies, especially the travel companies. This is one more obstacle for the cruise industry traveling to ports around the world. The questions that need to be answered are: whether the new variant is more transmissible and will the vaccines be less effective?
Virgin Voyages has responded directly to the new threat, implementing new protocols on their vessels. Since Virgin Voyages requires full vaccination of the passengers, the masks are not required. But in the new changes, referring to the passengers that recently traveled to African areas where cases of Omicron have appeared, they oblige them to wear masks indoors on the ship and require additional COVID testing.
With the recent CDC updates regarding travel restrictions from threats of the Omicron variant, sailors who have traveled through the following regions within 14 days of their voyage (South Africa, Mozambique, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Lesotho, Botswana, and Eswantin) will be subject to extra precautionary measures onboard, including mask-wearing while indoors (not in their cabin), taking a COVID-19 test on day 3 of their voyage and reporting any symptoms to the medical center. If Sailors do not wish to follow these precautions, they will be offered a Future Voyage Credit to move their voyage.
This is in addition to the current vaccine requirement and testing done at the terminal before boarding the ship. Even though the average cases per day across dozens of ships is 12, according to the CDC data, now the Omicron brings new concerns. The doubt that appears to be a further issue for the cruise company is that not many passengers will have a recent travel history before boarding.
A little comparison with the first restrictions at the beginning of the pandemic: passengers who had been to South Korea, Iran, China, and other countries were not allowed to board the cruise ships worldwide. Anyway, the virus found its way, crossing those boundaries.
