COVID-19 outbreak on Royal Caribbean ship delays homecoming for Trinidadian crew
Nearly 300 Trinidadians disembarked Royal Caribbean’s Enchantment of the Seas cruise ship Tuesday after three and a half months stuck at sea. But they won’t be going home just yet.
A COVID-19 outbreak on the ship left the government scrambling to figure out how to handle the influx of returning citizens. After two weeks of onboard quarantine and a delay of several days, the government decided Tuesday it would sequester crew members for additional days on land.
It was another example of the balancing act countries in the Caribbean and elsewhere face as they work with cruise companies to get their citizens home. Thousands of crew members are still waiting to go home more than three months after the cruise industry stopped operations, and at least 11 ships are currently experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Royal Caribbean Cruises spokesperson Jonathon Fishman said the company has repatriated more than 40,000 crew members to more than 100 countries with around 3,000 more to go.
“We appreciate the guidance we’ve received from CDC and dozens of other agencies during this complex process, and we will continue to rely on our long-standing partnership with these agencies as we look to return to sailing,” he said.
Tuesday’s repatriations came as residents in some parts of the capital of Port-of-Spain clashed with police following the shooting death of three men on Saturday, leading some crew members to worry they would remain stuck onboard the ship for another day. Gunshots could be heard in eastern parts of the capital while residents also blocked parts of the Beetham highway amid the rising tensions.
National Security Minister Stuart Young, speaking at a press conference, said investigations had been ordered. “We are aware there was this incident in Morvant where three persons lost their lives at the hands of the Trinidad and Police Service,” he said. “We do not have all of the facts.”
Young also expressed his dismay over the chaotic protests, which also took place Monday. “What we’ve woken up to this morning is very, very disturbing... .This is not what we expect of our law-abiding citizens.”
Like other nations with limited health facilities, Trinidad’s government has struggled with how to accommodate returning cruise ship workers. In late May the government told Royal Caribbean that its health system couldn’t handle 300 crew members at once and the company would need to quarantine and test them on the ship.
On June 12, the Enchantment of the Seas ship arrived in Trinidadian waters to repatriate the workers. Following government requirements, Royal Caribbean isolated everyone into individual cabins and ordered them to stay inside the cabins for a two-week quarantine. The company tested all 307 Trinidadians for COVID-19 on June 14 using PCR tests; six people tested positive and were transferred to a land hospital. On June 23 the company tested everyone again, and three more people tested positive.
The government originally told crew members that if they tested negative twice, they could go home on June 26. But after the second round of testing showed more infections on board, the Ministry of Health announced that the crew members would stay on board until Tuesday, when they would be transferred to medical facilities for further quarantine.
“This is to facilitate the continued monitoring of these nationals,” the Ministry of Health said in a release. “The nationals will be held in quarantine, for a short period, where another round of PCR tests will be conducted during this week. Upon receipt and review of these results, a determination will be made as to when they can be safely reunited with their families.”
The delay has frustrated crew members who are eager to get home because Royal Caribbean has not paid them in two months. The company is providing crew members $13.33 per day, but that has not been enough to cover the cost of shampoo, toothpaste and snacks while they are on board.
“I am spending more than $13 per day,” said one Trinidadian crew member who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I have a 6-month-old baby who needs baby food. If I was home, I could make money. Everything is on me right now.”
This is not the first time Trinidad and Tobago has dealt with cruise ship COVID-19 cases.
In March, 68 citizens returning from an ill-fated cruise aboard Carnival Corporation’s Costa Favolosa ship were taken into a quarantine facility inside the country. Shortly after, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh confirmed that 52 of the country’s confirmed cases, which accounted for half, were cruise passengers.
Deyalsingh said at the time the passengers had become stranded in the French Caribbean after going on a cruise despite the government’s warning a month earlier to avoid overseas travel. He has touted the government’s decision to suspend cruise ships early on in the pandemic, saying had it not done so, the number of positive infections in Trinidad and Tobago would have been far greater.
As of Monday, the oil-rich eastern Caribbean nation had registered 126 positive cases and eight deaths related to the novel coronavirus.
Neither Deyalsingh nor Chief Medical Officer Dr. Roshan Parasram responded to a Miami Herald request for comment about Tuesday’s repatriation process. On June 15, Communications Minister Donna Cox acknowledged the positive cases among crew members from Enchantment of the Seas and said “there’s no risk of local transmission to Trinidad and Tobago.”
After the Trinidadians left the Enchantment of the Seas on Tuesday, crew from the Philippines, India and the Republic of Moldova remained on board waiting to go home, according to a company repatriation plan obtained by the Herald.
To curb the spread of COVID-19 on ships, the CDC advises companies to eliminate self-serve dining options, discourage handshakes, implement social distancing, and require crew members to wear face masks, measures the crew member said were in place on Enchantment of the Seas. If a ship has crew members who have COVID-19-like symptoms, the CDC requires companies to close bars and gyms and cancel all group gatherings.
Earlier this month, the CDC’s director of the Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, Martin Cetron, said even the slightest lapse in the protocols can cause an outbreak on a cruise ship.
“It takes a very meticulous effort to stop outbreaks once they are started,” Cetron said. “This virus doesn’t stop until it exhausts all its susceptibles.”
This story was originally published June 30, 2020 at 6:40 PM.
